The Fijian pointed at the island topline.

“You see it?”

I didn’t see it.

I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to be seeing.

“The Sleeping Giant. There. His belly. His boobs. His nose. You see it?”

Still air thick with humidity morphed into a passing breeze as the boat cut through the sheet-glass water, and I squinted my eyes at the ragged ridge spanning the length of the main island.

I didn’t see it.

The panga pulled up to the left-hand reef break in the middle of the South Pacific, and I spent the next two hours surfing perfect, beautiful walls of water with a handful of new friends. A fish exploding with color swam below us, and the Fijian smiled and shrugged at the same time.

“Beautiful. Many more when I was growing up.”

The coral showed in patchy brilliance, and he told us the reef was once a carpet of purple and blue and white. “The water. Much warmer.”

Much warmer was ok with me. Surfing in wetsuits and hoods was the norm back home, and I was used to my entire body initiating a slow, contracting shrivel after about 20 minutes in the water.

As we sped away from the reef, I tried again to make out the belly. The boobs. The nose. The Fijian followed my gaze and said the Sleeping Giant was once awake, long ago, before humans touched the island. He protected the ocean and land and animals, but when he saw the humans coming on their boats, he went to sleep to save his energy. He knew the time would come when he would have to defend the ocean and land and animals, and he would rise again.

As the Fijian finished the story, the crag of the Giant’s brow came into focus.

The belly. The boobs. The nose.

There he was, waiting.

The Sleeping Giant.