Get To Know Simeon Ke-Paloma.
It is going to be another sunny day and Simeon Ke-Paloma knows it will be a busy one. He is a lifeguard at one of Hawaii’s busiest spots, Waikiki beach, Oahu. He breaks down the history of the area.
“It’s the welcoming spot for visitors. It’s got really nice waters, Diamond Head is right there and all the hotels are close by. Since the days of Duke Kahanamoku, the Beach Boys would help visitors learn how to surf.”
Typically the waves are mellow, anywhere between 3 to 6 feet. During the summer, the waves get big, up to 12 to 14 feet. But if there’s anyone that can make sure people are safe, it’s Simeon. He grew up in the area he works at and knows every inch of that beach like the back of his hand.
“It makes sense, it gives me the local knowledge needed to do my job the best I can.”
Simeon jumps on his moped scooter to get to work, and about 3 miles away from the beach, on a hill, Simeon takes a quick stop to observe the ocean. Just by seeing the color of the ocean, (there was a big swell recently) he knows how the waves are going to be because the waters will all be sturred up. If it’s a certain shade of green or if it’s a nice shade of blue, he’ll know if the waves will be a bit bigger or if it’s going to be a flat day. As he gets closer to his watchtower, he gets more focused, always observing the water, how crowded the beach is, the wind direction, what the weather looks like.
Talis Crew is proud to introduce team rider Simeon Ke-Paloma, in our first “Get to know” series, where we give you an insider look at our riders’ water and sports experience. Simeon is a world class waterman, multiple race paddle champion with Outrigger Canoe Club, top 5 Molokai Solo and Molokai Relay finalist, and is now at the forefront of foil boarding. He’s the owner of We Go Island Canoe (click to link), a unique touring experience where you ride in a canoe to hidden spots in Oahu, and the founder of Voyager Foiler (click to link) where he and a growing group of “Voyagers” are helping to build the sport of foil surfing in Hawaii. So many things to cover so let’s jump in.
Thanks Sim for taking the time to talk today. Can you tell us about your water sports experience. How did you get started and how did it evolve?
It all started when I was about 6 or 7 when I first learned how to surf. My dad would go down to the Elk’s club, where people would go to exercise and swim, and he would drop me off by the water. I first learned how to surf by standing up on a boogieboard and catching waves. That was my initial experience surfing, but nothing really took off from there. After, I got into more organized sports like baseball, basketball, soccer, and into middle school, volleyball.
Right when I got into middle school, age 12, I started paddling. My dad was a big paddler. When one man canoes first came out back in the 80’s to 90's, he was one of the first guys to own one. So I grew up at the canoe races at Oahu. Just being around the sport and culture, I got into paddling, it became part of my organized sports. And right around junior high, and high school is when I started surfing a lot more, at Waikiki and Diamond Head. All the guys that I surfed with I also paddled with, we were paddling at Outrigger Canoe Club. We did really well, winning races, winning the State Championship. These battles, fighting for 1st and 2nd place, gave me my competitiveness for paddling. To get better, I started to paddle a one man canoe with my friends, or friends from other clubs, just so we could get together to race.
I went to school with the Dolan brothers (Patrick and Ryan, Team USA). Patrick won the Molokai Relay with Kai Bartlett while he was still a sophomore in highschool. To me at that time, that was crazy because the bar was set so high.
At the age of 16, Pat was a hammer in a pool of big dogs. They were adopted by the Lanikai men’s open team, paddling with the Foti brothers. The guys in their men’s program were the last Hawaiians to win the Molokai before the Tahitians started winning it. Back then, you needed to be 18 years old before you were allowed to compete. Seeing all of this, I tried to gain as much experience as possible, beefing up my skills and expertise in the one man (outrigger canoe) so that I could prove myself that I would have what it takes to contribute to the 1st or 2nd crew. At the time when I started canoe paddling, my dad and his friends were paddling the Hawaii Kai run. They were a bunch of middle aged men, maybe even older, that would paddle with each other 3 to 5 days a week. They would meet at Kaimana Beach at 7:30am, you know like a coffee crew, talking story, then load up the canoes and go. I ended up joining them because until then, I was just paddling flat water. This was going to be my first experience paddling in the open ocean.
I remember tripping out. I got so frustrated because I would paddle so hard to try and catch a bump, but I was fighting the ocean. These older men were just smoking me, paddling past to the point I couldn’t see them. One of the guys left his wife to escort me across, and she was trying to be nice saying I was doing well but I was so pissed because I was paddling so hard, I knew I was physically stronger than all of these guys. This is when I started my journey, to learn how to use the ocean, catching and surfing the bumps.
So I started going with them 2 to 3 times a week, which was a lot for me considering my school schedule, and sure enough, I started to improve. I remember the feeling when I was able to hang with the crew or even beat them. “YES! I beat Uncle Harvey! YES”! I was so stoked to beat these middle aged guys, and the day I beat my dad on the run was the best. He was mad because I rubbed it in, but after that, he was always on the escort boat for my races. For the next 2 years, I would paddle with these guys, earning my stripes on my white belt and then my blue belt (Brazilian jujitsu terms).
Looking back at it now, towards the end of my high school days, I continued to play organized sports but my focus was on surfing and canoe paddling. A lot of my friends that I played volleyball with went on to play Division One volleyball, a few being Olympians. That’s when I dedicated myself to the sport of paddling. I was 18 years old, up and coming, training alone, racing a lot, racing at a high level, and surrounding myself with guys that would make me better.
Those guys being Jimmy Austin, Mike Kane, Johnny Puakea, the Dolan brothers, Luke Evslin, Kelly Foster, and Bill Pratt, all those guys. I was exposed to the best one man paddlers and six man paddlers. At that time, the Outrigger Canoe Club had one of the best teams in Hawaii.
This was right around the time when Shell Vaa won a couple of Molokai’s in a row, but we were still skeptical that they would win if there was surf, because the years they won, it was flat. So it was still super competitive at Outrigger (Canoe Club). The level was so high and man, I’m just this kid fighting to be in the boat. This helped me accelerate my skills as a paddler because I wanted to be in the boat so badly.
My experience is so different from junior programs these days, I was an 18 year old paddling with full grown men, full of testosterone, 26 to 32 year olds in their prime. It was so intimidating, it’s not like these new junior programs where you paddle with guys your same age, I had these gnarly, burly men paddling in the same boat, and that just made me paddle as hard as I could because I didn’t want to slow the boat down. Or with time trials, every stroke I would paddle as hard as I could because I didn’t want to be blamed that we lost.
It was just a crazy environment but I got to learn a lot. I was exposed to competitive, high level paddling at a young age, from racing, nutrition, program building, to following training programs, getting out on all types of water, rough waters, on shore winds, off shore winds, really trying to expose myself. That crazy gauntlet that I went through helped me develop the art of navigating and reading ocean bumps. It’s the same skill that makes you a good downwind paddler, a good one man paddler, especially here in Hawaii.
It’s so fascinating to me how the top guys did it. Take a look at guys like Jimmy (Austin) or Karel (Tresnak Jr), they are masters at reading the water. That’s always been the mantra of paddling, being efficient on the bumps, going as fast as possible while using the least amount of energy. But it’s definitely about spending time on the water. If you aren’t experienced enough, you know, you are going hard, you are surfing waves, you are killing it, you think you aren’t making any mistakes, you aren’t missing any bumps, and then you look over and you see guys like Jimmy or Karel, and they happen to be gaining on you, passing you, making their gap bigger. It’s the most helpless feeling ever but that’s what it means to be elite.
“So when foiling came on the scene, that blew my mind. I remember the first time I went, it was crazy, it was nothing I ever felt, and that was just the surfing part. It was a totally brand new challenge.”
The beginning of Simeon’s foiling career.
My very first experience on a prone foil board was when my coworker brought one into work one day. After work, I tried to ride it and it was so hilarious because I couldn’t stand up on the thing. I’m a surfer and trying to ride it was the ultimate challenge. Add on that it’s got the gnarliest learning curve, you’ll be falling a lot. You will be riding so fast, floating 3 feet above the water and then falling on these sharp knife edges (foil wings). But I was stubborn and determined to get it and once I was able to glide, I was hooked.
What I quickly realized is that I had to turn on multiple parts of my brain. My surfing brain was turned on making sure my balance, stance, speed was correct, but my paddling brain was also on, reading the water constantly calculating the next move. It’s the amazing “flow state” where your brain is so dialed in because there’s so much happening. That’s why the best surfers in the world are into it like John John Florence (click the link) and Kai Lenny (click the link). Even the top paddlers from Tahiti are doing it.
I was always out there trying to master surfing (on the foil) and in the back of my mind, I had the realization that if I’m able to catch and ride these tiny waves all the way to shore, we can do the same out there in the ocean, in the channel. There are literally a million of these waves breaking and we can do a run on them. At that time though, there weren’t high aspect wings to glide and carry speed. As the tech developed, it was game over, we started going out there and it was epic. All of my experience riding the ocean on my canoe gave me the skills I needed reading the water on a foilboard. It was the best way to surf and ride the ocean.
The birth of Voyager Foiler
After my initial experience riding on a prone foil board, I felt like I needed to take my GoPro camera and film it. There was a small group of us, Jack, Scotty, Adam and Drew, they’re the best riders in Hawaii. Back then, you were a madman if you could link two to three waves together. My skills weren’t there yet, but with my paddling skills of reading the water, I was able to keep up. We would push the distances on our boards, riding from one surf spot to the next. Once the high aspect wings came out, we were able to make it 3 miles down the coast which was a huge accomplishment. At first it, I would capture footage of those guys going, trying to blow it up in the foil community. It was mainly us riding together but then all of a sudden, on a windy day, you would see a new guy, then a group of new guys. It is crazy, that was a year ago, and we’ve improved so much but it’s still at its infancy. There are levels though, not everyone can properly downwind foil yet. The worst is when you fall because you’ll need to paddle sometimes for 30 minutes before you can catch a proper wave again. Or some guys are pumping monsters, but they can’t go past 100 yards. There’s still so much to learn. What’s exciting is that there are all these different places around the world that get great wind. How cool would it be to foil the Gorge, in Portland Oregon. We are still in the exploration part for this sport. I wanted to document all of this because I wanted everyone to see all of the different aspects of this sport.
Shout outs
Mahalo Ke Akua for blessing me with all the great influences and my home, Hawaii. To my dad who got me started and bought me my first boat, to my training partners that brought me up and showed me the way (too many to note), to the Outrigger Canoe Club, and to Kamanu Composites for the support over the years.
Last but not least, thanks to my wife who’s the backbone of our growing family, giving me many opportunities to exercise my hobbies.
Get to know Simeon by following all of these accounts on instagram @ Simeon Ke Paloma, Voyager Foiler and We Go Island Canoe .
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Good times ahead!
