Once in smoother water we waited for the proper moment, counting the foam-crests as they passed. Waves go in multiples of three, the third being longer and going farther than the two before it, and the ninth, or third third, being strongest of all. This ninth wave we waited for. Choosing any other meant being spilled in tumbling water when it broke far from land, and falling prey to the succeeding ones, which bruised unmercifully.
Double canoes
Harbor sports
But taking the ninth monster at its start, we rode marvelously, staying at its summit as it mounted higher and higher, shouting above the lesser rollers, until it dashed upon the smooth sand half a mile away. Exultation kept the heart in the throat, the pulses beating wildly, as the breaker tore its way over the foaming rollers, I on the roof of the swell, lying almost over its front wall, holding like death to my plank while the wind sang in my ears and sky and sea mingled in rushing blueness.
To take such a ride twice in an afternoon taxed my strength, but the Marquesan boys and girls were never wearied, and laughed at my violent breathing.
The Romans ranked swimming with letters, saying of an uneducated man, “Nec literas didicit nec natare.” He had neither learned to read nor to swim. The sea is the book of the South Sea Islanders. They swim as they walk, beginning as babies to dive and to frolic in the water. Their mothers place them on the river bank at a day old, and in a few months they are swimming in shallow water. At two and three years they play in the surf, swimming with the easy motion of a frog. They have no fear of the water to overcome, for they are accustomed to the element from birth, and it is to them as natural as land.