Morning on the Kohala Coast. Calm, oil-slick water, blue and blue and more blue. Black and black and more black. Lava leveling everything in its way until it meets the ocean. Few beaches. All around, mountains rising from the water like pyramids.
Everyone on O‘ahu spoke about how different the Big Island was, but being here made it feel so much more alive. As if the island vibrated at a higher frequency. And something about the sheer bulk of those volcanoes made her feel tiny but also part of the fabric of the place, as if she were woven into the morning by air and water and sunshine.
Nalu kept the boat moving at a good clip as they headed to the point break where the incident with surfer Stuart Callahan happened. While laypeople threw around the wordattack, Minnow preferredbiteorincident.Much of the time, people died from a shark bite rather than an all-out attack. White sharks are notoriously curious, and since they have no hands, they use their mouth to investigate things. And those mouths are home to seven rows of serrated teeth, with a conveyor belt moving in a new tooth when an old one falls out.
The point was about eight miles south of the Kiawe and a milesouth of an enclave of billionaire homes known as Kohola. The water was so smooth, Minnow was able to drink her coffee without spilling. When they arrived at Bird Rock, the name of the surf break, she was still bone dry.
“Why is it called Bird Rock?” Minnow asked.
Nalu pointed to a scattering of dry rocks off the point. “Because there’s usually a bird standing on one of those rocks.”
“What kind of bird?”
“‘Auku‘u.Heron.”
He turned off the motor and they floated forty yards or so outside the bay. Beneath the surface, coral heads in a myriad of yellows and purples and reds spread out in all directions. The benign beauty made it hard to believe what horrors had happened in this exact spot a week ago. A body vibrant and alive and riding waves one minute, then bleeding out the next.
Today there was no surf and it was hard to imagine waves rolling in here.
“Is this where they were?” she asked.
“From what I hear, there’s an outside break when the surf is bigger and another smaller one here. The waves were sizable that day, and Stuart and his dad, Sam, were out there.”
She could see the coral shelf for another forty yards or so, and then the water turned a deeper shade of blue. “Looks like a big drop-off out there.”
“It gets deep fast.”
She paused, thinking. Steep drops were notorious for attracting sharks because the upwelling of cooler water mixing with warm was often a place where fish hung out.
“Did you guys have a look underwater?”
“No. We’ve been tight on time.”
“Let’s go farther out. I’d like to get in,” she said.
They were already here, so they may as well see the underwater topography.
Nalu drove them out and dropped anchor. The sun burned down hot, and Minnow couldn’t wait to submerge herself. Though Nalu had brought tanks, she wanted to free dive. It was her preferred method of being in the water, less encumbered. For her sixth birthday, her father had given her an oval-shaped mask that had quickly become her most prized possession. She carried it everywhere and even slept with it next to her feather-soft pillow. Since it came with no snorkel, she had been practicing holding her breath and noticed she could stay under for longer periods of time. Her goal was to grow her own gills, though she never told anyone that.
While she pulled out her mask and fins, Nalu just stood there.
“Are you coming with me?” she asked.
“Do you want me to?”
“Two sets of eyes are always better than one.”
He surveyed the water around the boat, first starboard and then port, almost as though he was afraid.
“You think it’s still hanging around here?” he asked.
“I doubt it, but there’s only one way to find out. And anyway, I want to see the topography for my incident notes.”
Not looking too excited about the prospect, he slowly peeled off his shirt and grabbed his gear, spitting in his mask and nodding over at two three-prong spears, which lay along the side of the boat. “You need one?” he asked.
Minnow held up her dive knife. “I have this.”
Not that a dive knife or a three-prong would do much in the event of an ambush attack by a large shark, but that was a risk you took.
