Stuart Holmes Coleman

“with his feet. Driving up and down its face, Eddie rode the wave until it finally petered out in the deep-water channel. When he paddled back out, John and Sammy congratulated him on his ride. They hooted for each other whenever someone got a good one. Eddie ended up catching some of the biggest waves and riding them all the way to the inside section. “I mean, he blew everyone away at Sunset that day,” Sammy recalls. “Eddie was a natural: he just took to the waves and everybody was saying, ‘Who the hell is this guy?!’ He was easy to like, a humble guy. And certainly his talent was immense and noticeable right away. Because of his skills, he quickly established his reputation.” Sammy started surfing big waves with Eddie and hanging out at the graveyard on occasion. “Over time I became friendly with the family and eventually ended up spending a lot of time with them,” Lee says. “I admired that family for their cohesiveness. And I got to know the father really well, and he became a personal friend of mine. He was easy to talk to, and he had a lot of aloha. The father was a really charismatic man. He wasn’t educated in the book sense but he was a charismatic individual, and he appealed to people from all walks of life, people from this country and other countries as well. You either loved the guy or you hated him. He was very blunt but very generous. His generosity knew no bounds if he liked you.” Pops welcomed Sammy into his family like a son because he was like an older brother to Eddie and the boys, taking them to the beach and looking out for them. Pops was also grateful to Sammy for introducing his sons to famous surfers like Fred Van Dyke and Peter Cole, who had taught Sammy (and his fellow surfers) at Punahou School. Like John Kelly, these men were champion big-wave riders and gods in Eddie’s eyes. For Sammy’s 25th birthday, Pops threw a party for him and invited”
― Stuart Holmes Coleman, Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero and Pioneer of Big Wave Surfing