Duke Kahanamoku Quotes

it was the Hawaiians who took it to the next level and who recognized surfing as exhilarating, primal, addictive fun, tasting the salty spray while moving through coils of liquid, feeling the wind and the sun and being at one with the mysterious universe.

Unlike Herman Melville and Mark Twain, London brought his readers into the surf from the moment he espied “the white-headed combers thrust suddenly skyward out of the placid turquoise blue and come rolling in to shore. One after another they come, a mile long, with smoking crests, the white battalions of the infinite army of the sea. And one sits and listens to the perpetual roar, and watches the unending procession, and feels tiny and fragile before this tremendous force expressing itself in fury and foam and sound.”12

Did you know? Duke Kahanamoku competed in four Olympics from 1912 to 1932 setting three world-records, while winning three gold medals, two silver, and one bronze.

First things first: Kahanamoku went for a homecoming swim in the ocean. “Gee, but this feels good,” he said. “Tank swimming is all right in its way, and I had some good plunges in the surf at Atlantic City, but there’s nothing like Waikiki in the whole world. I’ve been thinking of this for months and months. Ever since I went away, I guess.”15

He yearned for water like it was his lover.

He possessed the ultimate trump card: a transcendent love for his home, what he called the "navel of the world," and a deep connection to its values, traditions, and teachings.

While he was alive, Duke Kahanamoku was Hawaii's favorite son. Until Barack Obama came along, no one born in Hawaii was more famous or revered than Duke Kahanamoku.

First and foremost they were watermen and waterwomen. The ocean and the beach were at the center of their existence.