Like most kids growing up on the west side of the Big Island, I learned to surf at Pinetrees. The name, as local lore goes, is a misnomer—a playful inaccuracy bestowed by fishermen who mistook the monkey-pod trees for pines. A simple error turned into a legacy. To us, though, it wasn’t about the name. It was the place. A stretch of coast that felt as inevitable as the tides, as though surfing there was less a choice and more a birthright.

The wave itself? Hardly legendary. It doesn’t grace the pages of glossy surf magazines or fuel the fevered dreams of big-wave chasers. But it’s reliable, steady as a metronome, peeling just enough to keep you coming back. That’s the secret of Pinetrees—it’s not special, not in the grand, cinematic sense. And yet, it draws people in like a flame pulling moths: groms with sunburnt noses, grizzled legends who wear the ocean like a second skin, and even the odd kook flailing in the whitewash. Somehow, in this little stretch of sea, we all fit in. There’s no pecking order, no sneer for the uninitiated. Just a shared sense of belonging, rare and precious in a surf culture that can so often feel like an exclusive club.

It’s cult-like, the way we cling to this spot, this feeling. We all started here. First wobbly rides on borrowed boards, first bruises, first small triumphs. Over time, it weaves a kind of bond—unspoken but undeniable. The groms grow up, the legends pass their wisdom, the kooks become… less kooky. And still, the rhythm of Pinetrees carries on, a perpetual motion machine of stoke and saltwater.

There’s an ease here, a kind of collective exhale. No one’s measuring their worth in how deep they get barreled or how many followers they have on some shiny screen. It’s just waves and people. A communion with something bigger than any of us, delivered in increments of swell and foam.

Shooting this place with a vintage Pentax K1000 felt right, almost sacred. An old camera, a roll of expired Ilford film—both imperfect, unpredictable, full of quirks. There’s a romance in that, a parallel to Pinetrees itself. The grainy texture of the photos, the softened light, even the occasional overexposure—they capture something real. Not glossy, not curated. Just a fleeting moment where time feels slower, truer. Somehow, this imperfect medium got closer to the truth of Pinetrees than a million pixels ever could.