Montauk Pioneer - August 8, 2008

The East End Classics Foundation will present the 10th Annual Rell Sunn Surf Memorial, benefiting families with cancer on the East End of Long Island.

Saturday morning’s event at Ditch Plains will feature a great surfing contest and outrageous products and personal services raffle. One hundred percent of the proceeds, including contestant entry fees, go directly to East End recipients.

One of this year’s recipients will be Montauk resident Nora Franzetti, who is a caregiver tending to her husband Brian’s needs to defeat cancer.

Rell Sunn spends countless hours sharing her Mana (a sacred impersonal force) with delight, encouraging so many to dramatically transform many young hearts in the midst of her own personal battle with cancer, and at age 47.

“The aloha spirit is real simple. You give and you give and you give…and you give from here (the heart), until you have nothing else to give,” says Rell Sunn.

Rell Sunn lived in the 50th state on the western shore of Oahu Island, home of the famed Makaha “Surfing Beach” where she served as a lifeguard and caregiver for years on end.

Makaha offers inviting yet challenging right hand point break rollers along with severe rip currents that generate a backwash effect. This spawns two-foot waves that travel seaward and that can be ridden back into the lineup by skilled surfers.

Life in Makaha thirty-five years ago was implemented and graded against traditional Hawaiian living standards, featuring one the finest beach pecking orders headed by famous Hawaiian Ambassador, Buffalo Keaulana, a gentle giant of a man who shared many life lessons with pupils like Rell Sunn. He spent countless hours molding area youngsters who were in and out of mischief and many who would eventually become surfers and guardians of the sea.

Many of our kids are taught ocean safety from a very young age through surfing, outrigger canoe paddling, body surfing, fishing and other related activities such as organized sports.

Societal certificates of achievement, talent and/or bliss alone will not spawn Mana. That is produced through relentless caregiving. “Surfing was created over 2000 years ago for the soul purpose of pure recreation and nothing beyond.”

It was in 1972 that we saw Auntie Rell smiling in the lifeguard tower nearly everyday that “endless summer,” and for me as a young man, capturing her Mana, she oozed with charismatic grace and charm, punctuated with a capital “C.”

What I absorb within my heart the most from Rell Sunn was knowing that I too can give until I can’t give any more, while increasing my efforts each and every year to help preserve yet another surfing legacy.

As a Hawaiian living 6000 miles away, I hold her torch proudly with event cofounder Roger Feit of Montauk, while implementing her wisdom and well wishes to keep us steadfast during the most challenging of times our great nation faces today.

Please come help us celebrate and give thanks through the “Most Fun” surf contest, lending a helping hand to our friends who battle the ugly disease while supporting a worthy cause through heaping servings of kindness or simply, aloha.

Quote of the Week: “Live Aloha.” -Hawaii Convention & Visitors Bureau.