How wrong I was.
I was out at 15 foot sunset yesterday before the sun came up. Andy Marr was there too, along with Dusty Payne, the Gadauskis brothers, Timmy Reyes and the Sunset king himself, Pancho Sullivan.
The morning light made it all look like a Wolfgang Bloch painting: gunmetal grey water, slate grey sky. Brilliant white foam, and soft yellow beach. There wasn’t a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the ocean, and Pancho was directing traffic. He sat furthest out, his positioning absolutely perfect every time, telling the few surfers in the water where to sit, and which waves to go for. When he went, he would lean his lock forward-sized physique onto the rail, and slice and carve up the waves like he was playing in a 3 foot shorebreak. The contest started at 8:00AM, and we had to clear the water, and I was left wondering if the day could get any better, because I had already seen the best of it. Or so I thought.
With the swell continuing to build, we went to Pipeline, which was living up to it’s lesser used full name of The Banzai Pipeline yesterday. 3rd reef was booming and the 50 or so surfers in the water were dodging foamballs and getting incredible tubes. This is surely the most incredible place to witness the beauty and drama, the glamour and psychosis of big wave surfing. I hit the water with my housemates, and surfed for hours. And the day just kept getting better.
At 10 – 15 feet, as it was yesterday, Pipe allows surfers to paddle in and stand up fairly easily, before it hits first reef, jacks, throws and mutates before eating itself and rolling up the shore, spent. It was incredible.
Galleries of photographers line the shore, and the beach was packed with spectators, applauding magnificent rides, and oohing and aahing with each wipeout.
The wipeout of the day undoubtedly goes to Australian charger, and Lizzard team rider Corey Ziems. Corey stays in the room next to me, and at the moment he is changing his ticket home, after being stretchered off the beach yesterday. He is lying in bed, barely mobile, in radical pain with a fractured spine and severe lacerations to his feet and buttocks, and won’t be surfing for at least 10 weeks.
The wave that did this to him was a beast, and he caught it far out, before fading deep and pulling in across the reef. He rode the tube until it closed out, got the shot and then jumped off. Textbook so far.
What you won’t see in the magazines, however, is that his wave had sucked all of the water off the reef in front of him.
Corey landed on a coral head in a sitting position, cheese grating his ass, and slicing his feet.
And then he heard a crack, and felt his back break.
He immediately grabbed his feet to make sure he still had feeling, which he did, and washed into shore, his board in smithereens acting like an anchor on it’s leash.
He couldn’t walk up the beach, and fortunately the lifeguard crew were on call to get him to the hospital in Wahiwa in an ambulance. Corey knows that had it been one inch to the left he could be dead. Corey also knows how lucky he is. But the reality is that he could quite possibly never surf again.
And here’s the thing. He got the shot, and you will see it in magazines around the world, but the waves are good today, and the beach is already talking about something else and someone else. Is he more famous? Not yet. Is he recognized as a big wave charger now? No. Is the surfing world speaking of him and his bravery in hushed tones? No. Is he in pain? Yes. Will he ever surf as well again? He doesn’t know.
