GRANT REYNOLDS

GRANT REYNOLDS

Grant Reynolds

Sitting at a restaurant with Grant Reynolds, Carl Ekstrom and his wife, was Tom Takao. Grant was talking about his trip to Hawaii in 1960. Starting out in San Diego he would travel north to Burbank Airport with friends and take the fourteen and half hour flight over to Honolulu Airport. Landing in the middle of the night and having no place to stay they left their boards at the airport. They got a ride into Honolulu and slept at Ala Moana Park where the mosquitoes ate them up alive.

The following morning as they walk down Kawakawa Blvd. they heard the some guy in a VW beeping his horn. The guys gets out of his car and its was Doug Schaffer. Carl says oh yeah. Doug had flown over a year prior and has a small place in town. He says “what are you guys doing over here, I want you to meet my roommate”. So Doug takes the guys to this little apartment and opens the door and yells “Hey Dick I want you to meet some friends of mine” and the guy who he was calling to comes out. It was Dick Brewer who was just starting and hasn’t shaped a board yet. Dick would go on after that with his legendary career as a surfboard shaper.

After surfing Town for a while Grant and his friends would rent a place out on the North Shore. Waiting around for the surf to come up they were bored. Going into Haleiwa Theater and paying their quarter to watch whatever was showing. One night the guys were in the house having a discussion. One of them says do you hear it. Everyone goes quiet and they could hear the shore pound. The dishes in the cupboard start rattling. They all run out into the backyard and sees the whitewater rushing up the beach.

The next morning the entire North Shore is closed out. Grant and his friends got a taste of what can happen over night when it came to big surf. After the surf went down they would go surf the popular spot along the North Shore. One day Grant was surfing Sunset Beach 6 to 8 ft., then a set came in and Grant and the guys who were out paddle further out. The waves were getting bigger and Grant was barely getting over the tops of the set. Set after set, further and further out he paddled. By now it was just Grant, the others either got picked off and swam in or caught the whitewater in.

One 20 foot set catches Grant as he pushed his board away and he is diving down 30 feet beneath the whitewater. After coming up for air he swim further out as the sets become 40 feet. Looking down the face of the wave Grant feels insignificant. He’s about a mile out and has lost sight of the beach. He sees his board popping up now and then further in but it soon disappears. Having been out for more than an hour since losing his board he contemplates swimming to Waimea. Looking down the coast he see the waves. They were bigger and more powerful so Grant decided not to go there.

The waves were still getting bigger and the swells longer. He dives under and swims as much as possible before coming up for air. Another set comes rolling in as he dives and swims. He sees his board about a half-mile away drifting in the rip. He swims for his board and after an hour or so and he gets his board. Still in deep trouble but having a board to rest on made the difference. He paddles towards the Point. He decides to catch a wave knowing if he stayed out past dark no would find him. So he catches a wave but does not stand up. In the prone position holding on to dear life, he makes the drop as the whitewater engulf him and the board.

Things are rushing around in his mind and the one thing he keeps holding on to is not to give up. Traveling across the shallows and near the beach, the current running along the beach was like a river. Exhausted and not knowing if he has the strength to get in. A surfer who sees what is happening runs down the beach and give him a hand and pull him in. Grant replies Paul Strauch was the guy who pulled me in. Grant got back to the house and happy to be alive. The Primo was on hold for another day, just words of encouragement for an exhausted Grant.