I rode a wave one evening, long after the sun had set, with the first
stars already out, that stood up and seemed to bend off the reef toward
open water, which was impossible. There was a dark, bottle-green light in
the bottom of the wall and a feathering whiteness overhead. Everything
else—the wind-riffled face, the channel ahead, the sky—was in shades of
blue-blackness. As it bent, and then bent some more, I found myself seemingly
surfing toward north Viti Levu, toward the mountain range where
the sun rose. Not possible, my mind said. Keep going. The wave felt like a
test of faith, or a test of sanity, or an enormous, undeserved gift. The laws
of physics appeared to have been relaxed. A hollow wave was roaring off
into deeper water. Not possible. It felt like a runaway train, an eruption of
magical realism, with that ocean-bottom light and the lacy white canopy.
I ran with it. Eventually, it bent back, of course, found the reef, and
tapered into the channel. I didn't tell Bryan about it. He wouldn't believe
me. That wave was otherworldly.