A Shore Thing

I said I was from Washington, which elicited what sounded like a gasp. He called the place "far out," then proceeded to list some of its many shortcomings, including a connection to "the industrialized, imperialist, capitalist world" he'd given up on when he moved to the North Shore after a hitch in the Army at Schofield. A respiratory therapist by training, Frazier, whose thinning sandy hair and beat-up wetsuit said he'd spent a good part of his life at the beach, thanked "the universe, or whatever, for directing me toward surfing."

You're lucky, I said, promising I'd be back the next day.

"Hey, if you want to surf, I'll give you a board."

My brief encounter with surfing had consisted of a handful of summer weekends in California, where I lived in the 1960s. As a sport, surfing never appealed to me as much as the way of life surrounding it had, the laid-back beach culture, the goofy language and music, all of which made surfing the greatest babe magnet the West Coast had ever seen. Getting on a surfboard now would be suicidal, I thought, but watching surfers out on the waves made it seem worth the risk, until one of them flipped head over heels and I came to my senses.

The times had changed, but surfing hadn't, and on the North Shore nothing short of an explosion in seaside development -- a remote possibility in this eco-obsessed area -- could alter the local way of life. The place is a tropical time warp. The cares of Washington -- terrorism, the trade deficit, the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court --make no sense. Here, no one seems to have anything more important to do than hang out, talk about the ocean and surf. That could get boring eventually, but it's hard to think of a better place for getting bored.

At the Sharks Cove Grill, a roadside trailer with picnic tables, two women were drinking Kona coffee and talking about living on the mainland for a couple of years before moving back to the islands. One said she had a hard time being anywhere that's not 84 degrees and sunny every day. I could see her point.

Why not live here? I've done crazier things, though not in a while. And besides, what was crazy about it? Later on, walking along the beach and trying to imagine how moving to Hawaii would change my life, I ran into a guy named Larry, playing with his dog, who said he also fell hopelessly in love with the place his first time. "I got addicted." Since then, he's been a cop, a store manager and a counselor for troubled youth -- "whatever it takes" to stay on the North Shore, he said, where he lives next to the ocean in a "studio garage."

I went back to Honolulu and returned to the North Shore the following morning. The surfing competition was postponed again. Wave conditions hadn't changed much. But I had. Part of me was ready to pull up stakes and follow in Larry's footsteps. Who cares about living in a studio garage in these surroundings? Of course, I'd have to convince my wife first, which wouldn't be easy. Also, without any marketable skills in a place fixated on going to the beach, economic survival might be an issue. I searched for answers over a tuna burger at the Sharks Cove, where, after two visits, I was starting to feel like a regular. The best solution I could come up with -- and my wife wasn't likely to go for it -- was selling everything we owned.

Sunset Beach was virtually empty, except for some sunbathers. The waves, puny by professional standards, were still impressive. Two hundred feet offshore, four surfers were bobbing up and down, waiting for breakers. As I took in the scene, I saw one of them heading into shore. He introduced himself as Steve Howells. We started talking about the surfing life, which he'd been pursuing for the past decade from South Africa to the South Pacific. "Searching for the perfect wave," he sighed, noting that the surfer's lot is never to be in one place very long. "I'm Welsh. It's my fate to wander."

Howells said in his spare time he writes music inspired by the sea. We walked to his car, and he gave me a copy of his latest CD, "Into the Blue." When I confessed I'd been thinking about moving to Hawaii, he admitted that he'd been thinking about leaving to seek new adventures.

"Play this," he said. "Maybe it'll inspire you."

I can't say that it did, but listening to the CD the next morning as I drove around Honolulu did make me realize how little impact the Ventures and their twangy guitars had had on the sound of today's surfing music, which comes across like a cosmic tsunami.

Before starting for the airport, I had to see the secluded beach, near the Blowhole, where Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr played the most romantic scene in movie history. Maybe it would help me resolve my Hawaii problem, get me thinking like Sgt. Warden, whose devotion to duty finally saved him from falling for Mrs. Holmes and taking the worst nosedive of his life. When I got to what looked like the right location, I asked a lifeguard just to be sure.

"That scene in 'From Here to Eternity,' didn't it take place around here?"

"Yeah, right over there," he said, motioning to a narrow stretch of sand and coral.

The surf was too choppy to stage a reenactment, even if I'd had a stand-in for Deborah Kerr, but somehow just being here helped. Was I chasing an illusion, some hopeless love, the same way Sgt. Warden chased the captain's wife? Had I fallen for Hawaii and gotten in over my head?

The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became. What the hell was wrong with me? I'm no surfer. I'm not even sure I've got the makings of a good beach bum. I don't belong in Hawaii.

It was a good thing I did this, I thought. Thank you, James Jones. Now I could fly home in peace.

At the airport, with an hour to kill, I was browsing for something to read on the plane. Flipping through some souvenir calendars, I made a startling discovery. There, in beautiful color, illustrating the month of July 2006, was a photograph of "the beach made famous in 'From Here to Eternity'"-- and it wasn't the beach where I'd just been!

That lifeguard lied.

Wait a minute. So what if it was the wrong beach? As much as I hated to admit it, the romance was finished. Sure, I'd be back, but any long-term commitment was out of the question.

It's better that way. For me . . . and Hawaii.

Bill Thomas is the co-author of Red Tape: Adventure Capitalism in the New Russia and other books.