Maui friends remember surfer was 'full of aloha'
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By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
KAHANA, Maui — Willis "Will" McInnis was the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back.
Christie Wilson • The Honolulu Advertiser
"He did give me the shirt off his back when I was cold once. He said, 'This shirt looks better on you, so keep it,' " recalled Kanamu Balinbin, who knew McInnis as one of the regulars who surfed and socialized at tiny Pohaku Park on the water's edge in Kahana.
A photo of Willis "Will" McInnis, right, and his friends was left at a memorial in Pohaku Park. McInnis was a member of Hui O Pohaku Park surf club.
Balinbin was among a crowd of several dozen who visited the park yesterday after McInnis, 57, was fatally mauled by a shark while surfing the S-Turns break.
Friends said McInnis, a retired salesman and Vietnam veteran, had lived on Maui off and on since the 1970s and was well-loved by fellow members of the Hui O Pohaku Park surf club, a loose-knit group of about 60 people who hang out at the county park. The club sponsors keiki surf contests, beach cleanups and other community events.
Tony Akoni said he first met McInnis about two years ago at Launiupoko Park. McInnis was a novice surfer but Akoni said he could tell he had a good heart, and he invited him to join the club.
"He had a joke for me every day. He would crack me up," Akoni said.
McInnis, who was over 6 feet tall and had a "gnarly beard," according to Akoni, apparently lived a colorful life that included some rough-and-tumble years on the Mainland as a biker, friends said.
He had straightened his life out and still loved to ride his Harley-Davidson. He just returned two months ago from a six-month, 26,000-mile motorcycle trek around the United States, said longtime friend John Stockham.
Stockham displayed a collection of business cards he had gotten from McInnis over the years. On one card, McInnis billed himself as a "sales wizard." Another was for Land & Sea Recovery, a business McInnis set up to help retrieve lost treasures using a metal detector.
A couple of years ago, Stockham said, McInnis worked as project director for time-share sales at Trendwest Resorts in Fiji.
"He was full of aloha; he was a very spiritual man," Stockham said.
Friends said McInnis regularly attended church services held Sundays at Pohaku Park.
Tina Cooper, who was paddling out at S-Turns when McInnis was attacked, said just before they went into the water, he told her that he had come to realize that Jesus was the answer to his spiritual quest.
"Praise the Lord and we paddled out," she said.
Stockham said McInnis' son would be traveling to Maui from Oregon to make funeral arrangements. An informal service will be held Sunday at Pohaku Park.
Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 244-4880.
