caddie shack

The ultimate surfing arena of Sunset turned on an outrageous display of power today, as 12 foot walls lurched through howling cross shore madness, and rain squalls pelted down while rogue sets loomed. The contest started early, and competitors were instantly playing cat and mouse with the lineup - and each other – dodging sets, fighting for priority, and doing their best to claim 6 point rides.

In a strange twist, I found myself in the channel during heat 13 as Damien Fahrenfort’s board caddy. We had a good laugh about it on the paddle out, because Damien grew up at Long Beach, and so did I.

I had pretty much a 9 year head start in life and being a local in Kommetjie, so I gave Damien a bit of trouble when he was a youngster full of attitude. He survived well enough, and is now much bigger than me and my, how the tables have turned. In fact, if someone had told either of us that one day I would be his board caddie in the Triple Crown at Sunset, we both would have laughed them out of town (or at least I would have, anyway).

Still, there I was, in the rain and wind, getting laid to waste by dodgy West peaks, making sure that Damien’s second board would be intact if he needed it. I was his bitch for 25 minutes, and Damien didn’t make my job much easier as he launched himself into a couple of nearly impossible drops, free falling into the flats on both of them, before catching his rail on the second one and then having to paddle through an 8 wave set.

He’s a strong kid, however, and handled it all with ease.

Board caddie culture must be one of the strangest sub cultures in modern surfing as 4 guys, some sitting on boards with another board leashed to their ankles, wait in the channel and follow the heat. When their surfer catches a wave, they race inside, to provide encouragement and advice and to set a pace for the paddle back out (or to provide a replacement surfboard for a snapped one). Kind of like the guy who runs on with the water at half time in the rugby match. Now imagine four of those water guys, who all know rugby really well, all sitting on the sideline bantering about rugby players, water, and great half time water deliveries, and you get close to what it’s like.

The waves were gnarly enough today to warrant a flipper on one foot, and a jetski for support for the caddies, but in less extreme conditions neither of these luxuries would be in place. The caddie is expected to sacrifice his only means of flotation to the competing surfer, and then swim in. In return, he traditionally receives 10% of the rider’s earnings for the event.

While the surfers in the water jockey for position and priority, in the channel it gets pretty chatty, even festive. Caddies hoot for rider’s waves, talk story while dodging sets and I was even offered a place to stay anytime I’m in Australia. It’s kind of like the anti-heat goes on on the periphery, will the real heat goes down on centre stage.

In the last minute of Damien’s heat, Frenchman Eric Rebiere took second place from him with a mushy ride to the beach, ending my caddying career for the time being. Meanwhile, in my anti-heat, the hooter sounded so I paddled in. While I was paddling, Damien took off on a wave between heats, broke his board and lost a fin.

Fortunately for me, the siren had wailed, the heat was done and I was already on the beach, my anti heat over. Dooma swam in with surprising ease, however, and I’m thinking maybe next time he can caddie for me.

The real deal

After a sleepy week the ocean awoke today and we got to see the more serious side of Hawaii. The Kam Highway was blocked up for kilometres in both directions as Honolulu tourists raced their rent-a-cars through to sit in a traffic jam and fight for parking, all just to catch a glimpse of the Pacific at it’s mightiest.

The O’Neill 6 star and the Roxy Pro both kicked off at Sunset today, and there was some phenomenal surfing, in very significant conditions.

The swell period moved from a 16 seconds to 18 seconds at around 2PM, and the new swell announced it’s arrival with the set of the day.

Liam McNamara was commentating and he saw it first, as it feathered across third reef Pipeline. He promptly claimed it as the biggest set of the year so far, while in the water the 4 man heat picked up on it a little late, except for the guy in red. He spotted an insider, took off, pulled into the barrel and added 2 massive carves for a 6 point ride. Meanwhile, his fellow competitors were getting absolutely cleaned by a solid 5 wave 12 foot set. Competitor in red’s tactical decision paid off as the rest of the heat couldn’t catch waves with all of the wash from the set, and he won it.

Pipe also lit up for the afternoon, and Tamayo Perry and Rob Machado shared 8-10 foot backlit waves, but the real star of the day was undoubtedly Sunset, which only proceeded to gain in size and intensity for the afternoon.

By the time the sun finally slid below the horizon, Sunset was a consistent 10-12 feet, with the cream of the North Shore, WQS and big wave surfers from around the world jockeying for waves while 4 tow-in teams shared the reeling lines of Backyards – which is to Sunset what Boneyards is to Supers.

Tomorrow is looking less positive, with a frontal weather system set to bring rain and wind with it, but the swell is going to be bigger. Wiamea, which has only been capping today, is set to start firing, and the show is only getting started.

We’re up before the sun, to see what tomorrow brings.

Giving Thanks

Thursday was Thanksgiving day in America and so it was Thanksgiving here on the North Shore too. Thanksgiving is possibly one of the nicest public holidays ever, because it is a whole day dedicated entirely to eating and drinking beer.

In fact, if you choose to opt out and surf the evening session instead, you’re recognized as someone who obviously is not liked enough to have been invited to a Thanksgiving feast and risk the fate of never being invited by anyone to anything ever again. So by 4PM the waves were empty, and stomachs were getting full.

This year, Thanksgiving arrived on one of the best days of weather of the winter – it was 27 degrees, and crystal clear. A happy, consistent 4 foot swell slid through, groomed by the soft offshore, and it was all about the Red, White and Blue.

We were sent to pick up some yams at Foodland at nine in the morning, as part of our contribution to our Thanksgiving lunch, hosted by the nicest man on the North Shore, Kai, who has all but adopted us. It was super festive at Foodland, kind of like Pick n Pay feels before a Springbok test match, except with Bruce Springsteen playing instead of Leon Schuster.

There we saw Pat O Connell and Rob Machado, packing their station wagons full of picnic food, and quietly sipping on beers. Pat is the quintessential happy American surfer dude - all smiles, all of the time - so he seemed as good a person as any to ask what yams are.

“Y’all from ‘Seff Efrika’ would call them sweet potatoes, 'broo',” he told us, before offering us a beer. We hadn’t had breakfast yet, and even The Mad Scientist hates drinking on an empty stomach, so we declined the generous offer.

“I’m going to a friends place for a barbeque, and to surf in front of his house for the day,” Pat told us, “Thanksgiving has to be the best day ever. You can’t think too much about surfing today, trust me.”

Now if anyone gives good advice, it must be Pat O Connell, so we focussed on eating for the day.

After a solid surf to work up an appetite at Sunset, we went round to Kai’s place and there we ate turkey, lamb, ham, corn, beans, yams, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, peach cobbler and drank lots of beer. Then we flopped around for an hour complaining that our stomachs were too full, when in reality we were just waiting for some digestion to go down to make room for seconds. Then we ate more. And so it went, on a hot Hawaiian Thanksgiving night as we ate and gave thanks.

We gave thanks for new friends, new adventures, great waves and good times in this far flung corner of the Pacific. We gave thanks for the fresh swell hitting this week, and for how lucky we are to be here. And we gave thanks that we live in South Africa: the most beautiful place on earth.

another day on the job

With the Pipeline contest due to start in just 10 days time, almost all of the pro’s are here now. That means that almost all of the photographers, videographers, journo’s and two bit hangers on are here too - and that includes the surfer chick groupies.

The beaches from Haleiwa to V-Land are full of bikini betties engaged in a competition of their own, and it works kind of like this: Find a place where pro surfers will notice you, don your tiniest bikini – in some cases mere fragments of cloth – and strut seductively back and forth. Lay out your towel – even if it’s raining - and lie on it for up to 10 hours at a time. If all goes well you will be invited up to someone’s house, where you might just hook up with a pro. The pro with the highest seed wins… or something like that.

The surf industry representatives have arrived too. The houses on the beachfront at Backdoor - previously the exclusive domain of the pro’s and their mates - are now groaning with the added weight of MD’s, team managers and CEO’s. Behind closed doors brands are discussing their strategies, their team riders and their futures in these uncertain times - and the mood is fairly grim amongst the big boys.

At least one major brand seems to be hitting the skids in the near future, and a lot of teams are being cut back. Surfing’s unprecedented Blue Crush and Slater fuelled boom of the 2000’s is forecast to be on a severe decline worldwide, and the brands are bracing themselves.

At the same time as all of this is going down, we are into the second leg of the Vans Triple Crown, a surfing series that claims “We are to surfing what Wimbledon is to tennis, or the Masters is to golf.” I always thought that that was just bullshit, but it’s the truth.

The Van’s Triple Crown is undoubtedly the pinnacle of competitive surfing: The world’s best surfers competing for the livelihoods against each other and against the giant, shifting peaks of Haleiwa, Sunset and Pipe, being watched by their employers… and the groupies.

And the pressure is telling.

The atmosphere at Backdoor and Off The Wall is all just work, work, work with the pro’s going through the motions of just doing their jobs to keep their sponsors: getting barrelled, boosting airs and getting as much media attention as possible.

Meanwhile all the fun right now is off the beaten track, at the waves that don’t make hero’s and don’t make the covers. There you’ll find those who come to Hawaii to share the warm water, golden sunsets and long beaches. There you’ll find the other surfers, getting some surf and sun on the small days. For them, surfing is a lifestyle, not a job, and man are they having fun on the North Shore.

American Rastafari

This story starts a few days ago, when The Mad Scientist and I were at Rockies, watching the waves.

We were innocently sitting in the shade, just planning our day, when onto the beach strutted a six foot five, dreadlocked monster of a man.

His skin was pitch black and he was wearing a pair of Pink jogging shorts, a black fishnet vest, giant white headphones with an aerial for radio reception and those new fangled nu-wave plastic neon sunglasses with reflective blue lenses. This guy was all Miami Beach muscle and dancefloor and don’t leave him alone with the children, but he may just know a thing or two...

Perhaps recognising a kindred spirit, he looked at The Mad Scientist, pointed at the cloudless sky and said straight: “Hope you brought your washing in brah, cos it’s goin to be a floodin.”

We must have looked confused, because he quickly elaborated, “Rain will come brah. And there’s a monsta flood brewin. You betta punch the fins from your board brah, cos you gonna be riding Waimea river on da floodwave brah.”

We had just met the imaginatively named Rasta. He lives near Rocky Point – so he’s always there - and no one really knows what he does for a living, but he seems to surf a whole bunch.

Now fast forward to the present with me. I’m sitting in the water at Rockies today, when the Nik Naks man swims up to me. Rasta has swum into the lineup, wearing a neon green helmet, silver reflective goggles with blue frames, white web gloves, red flippers, a black life jacket and a neon yellow wetsuit. Strapped onto his arm is a 6 inch diving knife with a bright blue handle.

So I ask him, “Are the waves too small for your surfboard today bru?”

“No brah,” He replies, “Too big brah.”

Once again, I believe he read the confusion on my face, and decided to help me out a bit.

“The swell that’s comin brah, it’s a big one. I need to practise in case I fall off my ski brah. Or maybe if I lose my board brah. This swimming time is solid brah,” he said as he calmly breast stroked through the lineup, like a massive piece of kelp going to a neon-themed costume party.

After about 7 minutes he’d had enough and went in, looking exhausted.

We wait in anticipation for the swell, like we waited for the rain. The rain never came, and The Mad Scientist is still bleak because his fins will cost a fortune to fix.

Hawaii may not be part of the American mainland, but America is very much part of Hawaii, and it never quite lets you forget it.

Maybe Dirty Harry could survive the WQS

The Reef Haleiwa Pro wound down on Saturday, just in time for Benji Weatherly’s "Cowboy’s versus Hillbillies" party at the Turtle Bay, sponsored by his favourite sponsor (with the worst sticker), Bud Light. The Mad Scientist and I bumped into Tahitian Michel Bourez there who was partying as if there literally was no tomorrow, thanks to his win at the contest and subsequent assurance of his place on the WCT.

Time and tide and the WQS wait for no man, however, and the O’Neill World Cup of Surfing is set to kick off tomorrow (it started today, but the surf was flat). The importance of this event cannot be rammed home enough, even if you don’t think that you care. Put it this way: after the next two weeks, there could be no South African surfers on the WCT next year.

Here's the lowdown: according to ASP numbers guru Al Hunt, it looks as if 11,450 points are required to secure a berth on the elite tour next year.

This number could rise - depending on the results of the event - but essentially there are 24 guys outside the top 15 that could possibly qualify.

That’s 40 guys, all the way down to 40th placed Dan Ross, who are in with a shout. If we remove the 16 who will qualify for the fame, fortune and fornication of the WCT, that’s 24 guys whose entire lives will be dictated by wind chop, inconsistent sets, board choice, what they had for dinner the night before and whether or not they’ve been warming up before surfs.

Between us (and because Al Hunt says so), I reckon only 12 of the guys can really do it.

It’s hair raisingly close, so try to visualise yourself eating dinner tonight in one of these guy’s shoes: Dave Weare will need to make one or 2 heats to secure his berth on the WCT. Sunny Garcia needs to make the final to qualify (at Sunset this should be a given the way he’s been surfing this season), Phil McDonald - who is sitting in position 15 - just needs to make one heat to qualify, and could possibly do it if he just gets a third in his four man heat.
Pat Gadauskas, who was leading the tour earlier this year is suddenly in the cold in 16^th place, and needs to make at least three heats to qualify. Greg Emslie could conceivably see his 12^th place grabbed away from him in one afternoon, despite ripping at Haleiwa and making the quarter finals. Greg has actually slid in the ratings this week, thanks to stellar performances from several lower placed WQS surfers - people like Michel Bourez who timed his peak like a porn star.

Now imagine being out at 15 foot, onshore Sunset, with Sunny, Bruce Irons and Pancho Sullivan in your heat. You need to make it through one more round to make the WCT for 2009… and ask yourself, do you feel lucky punk?

Huh? Do ya?

Run Forrest Run

Imagine if surfing had it’s own Forrest Gump.

Not the slow, lovable, “My mama always said life is like a box of chocolates,” Forrest Gump, but more the Vietnam tough guy Forrest Gump. The kind of person who, without meaning to, has a hand in every significant event in history over the past 40 years.

Well, yesterday I met that person. His name is Randy Rarick and he is a man who has shaped the evolution of wave riding, and continues to, every day. On a rainy day at Haleiwa, he was contest directing the 6 star Reef Haleiwa Pro, an event that dictated the fates of about 30 WQS and WCT surfers - depending on who won, who placed and who lost.

Rarick is nothing short of a remarkable individual, and although the movie of his life hasn’t been made yet, here are a few of the highlights for the trailer.

In the early 60’s when Rarick and friends were ruling a fun peak on an outside reef near his home on the North Shore, a skinny kid from down the street named Gerry Lopez asked if he could surf with them.

They allowed it, on one condition: “He could surf with us, just as long as he only went left.”

Lopez went on to win the Pipe Masters twice and is still regarded as one of the best ever Pipeline surfers, and he credits Rarick – and that moment - as a key influence in developing his surfing.

In 1967 Rarick graduated from High School in Oahu and left for Australia to attend Sydney Tech, studying accounting and commercial law - of course he was also surfing and learning about shaping. He travelled much of the east coast while he was there, including a stint at Byron Bay. There he worked with Bob McTavish and George Greenough on their mission to reinvent the surfboard – together creating the templates for the modern day short board.

He returned to the North Shore in 1969, the same year that one of the biggest ever swells smashed the North Shore, leaving Makaha on the West Side as the only possible place to surf. Rarick was among the handful of witnesses to watch the "biggest wave ever ridden," as Greg Noll dropped into the history books on a 35-foot wave -- still considered by many to be the biggest ever caught under one's own power.

In 1971, Rarick came to South Africa to surf the Gunston 500, and decided he wasn’t ready to return home just yet, so he started a four-year odyssey around the globe, exploring Angola, Namibia, Europe and the Caribbean.

To this day, the 58 year old has visited well more than 100 countries and surfed in more than 60 of them. On many occasions, he was the first surfer ever to ride a new break.

He returned to Hawaii in 1975, where Rarick joined forces with Fred Hemming to form International Professional Surfers – the first pro surfing circuit. He acted as director until 1982 when Ian Cairns and the ASP gained control of professional surfing. Rarick then helped to create the Hawaiian Triple Crown, the greatest surfing show on earth, which he has managed ever since.

The man is a phenomenon, who speaks eloquently and enthusiastically about his experiences, and his travels. Talking to him, and discussing his incredible achievements, one thing is clear: He’s only just getting started on this box of chocolates.

(with thanks to Surfline and Jason Borte)

Destiny

Last night we shared a beer and watched the sunset at Waimea with Andy Marr. While we sat on the very point that was once the sole domain of kings - and today is possibly the most expensive piece of real estate in Hawaii - we talked surfing, life and swell forecasts.

At one stage Andy looked into the distance, his eyes flashed crystal blue and he asked if we had seen the forecasts for next week. “It’s a once in a generation swell at the moment,” he said, “Yes, it’s going to be very, very big.”

We checked the charts when we got home. At the moment they are calling 5 metres at 16 seconds for next Saturday, and the animations show a swell system resembling a multi coloured tumour sliding and mutating it’s way across the Pacific from the Arctic, before it engorges the Hawaiian Islands.

It’s a giddy feeling knowing that destiny is coming for you, seeing fate so far away and then feeling it coming closer, minute by minute.

Different people react in different ways. Andy wakes up in the dark and stares into the blackness on the point at Waimea, willing it to arrive. Ant is pacing the floor wondering what boards he’ll need for the contest at Sunset, wondering if he has what it takes. The Mad Scientist is going down Shark’s Cove to swim in the underwater caves, and hold his breath, to be prepared for what may happen.

When you’re on the North Shore, and you know that this time next week you could be a hero, you could be safe on shore or you could be dead, how would you spend your time?

Would you wait for it or run from it? Would you let if invade your sleep, or would you prepare methodically? Would you watch your future grow and change and morph as it travels to your doorstep?

Could you take your eyes off your date with destiny?

Fight Club

My friend Aaron arrived from Tokyo today to spend the long weekend with his girlfriend, who lives in Honolulu. It was a beautiful day, and they came round to fetch me at midday for a surf at 2 foot Log Cabins.

The waves were playful. Little wedges were peaking up and running off the reef into the shorebreak, serving up tasty rights and lefts. The water was a transparent, luminous blue, and you could see tropical fish swimming in the reef gulley’s under your feet. There were about 10 guys and girls sharing the surf up and down the beach, having fun and getting some turns in.

And then the metaphoric black cloud appeared. If this was a western movie, around now the cheesy guitar twang would sound, and there would be a shot of women and children running for cover on the main street. The sheriff might even have said, “Looks like trouble’s a brewing,” before he flicked his smoke onto the dusty street.

We were joined by a gang of 10 local beefcakes – all tattooed and gymed up, with Mohawks and big chains on their necks – and not one of them could actually surf. They were really just out there to shout about the bitches they were banging and the parties and the drugs, and to drop in on everyone who they didn’t know. They were trouble and were doing their best to make us and every other foreigner feel seriously unwelcome.

To prove that there is never a dull moment in Hawaii, one of the Brazilians who had been out there when we first arrived took exception to being burned on a little left and said so, and before anyone could blink, it was fight club - just without Brad Pitt this time.

It started out with a wolf whistle from their biggest member, who looked more like a troll than a human, and the whole crew of ten guys went straight into the beach. One of the scrawniest of the ten grabbed the Brazilian dude’s surfboard (screaming “wrong F+ckin beach bro!”) and started smashing it against a rock.

And then, with ten against one, they fought. The Brazilian held his own though, so the posse backed off and left it to their bro who had picked the fight. You could hear the smack of fist to face from the water, and blood flowed from eyes and noses. For a full 5 minutes, they beat the crap out of each other while the posse pushed them on, fuelling the fight by kicking sand and throwing rocks at the Brazilian, and at one stage the whistling troll climbed in and clubbed him on the back of his head with a rock.

Meanwhile in the surf, a few waves went unridden, a few waves were ridden and life quietly carried on because this happens all the time, so it's best to try and act like nothing's happening. Eventually the lifeguard arrived to break up the mayhem, and the crew came back into the surf pumped with testosterone and anger while on the beach, in a weird display of sportsmanship, the two exhausted fighters shook hands, fetched their boards (or, for the Brazilian, the remnants of his board) and then as the Brazilian walked up the beach, the other fighter came back into the surf to his bro’s.

It seemed to be over, but they weren’t satisfied.

Minutes later the Kona’s blew through, and everyone went in. The local crew were all on the beach now, behaving as before.

As a haole (white guy) it is accepted that if you look at the tough guy locals in the wrong way, you will get beaten up, such is the thuggery of North Shore localism. We walked up the beach to our car, heads bowed so as not to make eye contact, while they cat called Aaron’s girlfriend. We got to the carpark at the same time as they did, and changed out of our surf trunks as they wheel spun off down the Kam highway to find the Brazilian, just to make sure he never came back.

who stole my cake?

I’m going to get it right out there. I was a fat kid.

And I loved birthdays, because birthdays meant cake. Now I’m not the big guy that I once was anymore, but I still like cake. And today it felt like cake had been promised to me, and then stolen from under my nose.

All week we have endured rain and wind and flat seas with a smile (I write it like it was a hardship, when actually it just meant that it was warm and wet here, instead of just warm). We smiled because we knew that there was a big swell coming today, and that when we dropped into Pipe or Sunset or somewhere solid and grinding, it would all be worth it.

But then, as the swell got closer, it started downgrading. It went from 3 metres to 2.5 to 2 and then even smaller. The reports that were calling for a peak on Friday started yelping at us to get out there now, and to make hay while the sun was shining. They changed their tune and told of rain and wind… not the hot, glassy, greasy conditions that they had been promising last Monday

They stole my cake.

Despite the revised forecasts, the swell still didn’t materialise - even though I demonstrated exceptional commitment to the promised waves by taking my 6’8” out at 3 foot Rocky Point at 9AM, in anticipation of the swell’s alleged 12’o’clock arrival. But instead of inspiring the swell to finally get here, it had the interesting effect of just making me look like an over-gunned dork.

Not ideal.

Still, we surfed for around 8 hours today, and in that time were privileged enough to share Rocky Rights with Jordy Smith, Timmy Reyes, Kahea Hart, Josh Kerr, Bede Durbidge, Peter Mel and about 45 other WQS surfers from all over the world.

Basically, me and my 6’8” found ourselves in the middle of Pro-Land for the day. While a crew of exceptional surfers blazed in the water, on land an arsenal of 600mm lenses fired off frame after frame at 10 frames per second while women in dental floss bikini’s lined up on the shore to eye the pro surfer man-candy, ooh-ing and ah-ing at their surfing prowess.

In Pro-Land anything is possible, even things you struggle to visualise. Aerial flips, upside down turns, functional aerials over sections and switch foot barrels are easy, and people who seem to call set waves to them are the norm. In Pro-Land, the unmakeable not only becomes makeable, it looks like it requires no effort. In Pro-Land, turns you don’t make become magazine covers, all your clothes are free and the guy always gets the girl.

Sadly, in Pro-Land, over-gunned dorks on 6’8”s get dropped in on quite a lot too. Even if they sit outside and get the biggest wave of the day. I guess it’s true what they say, you can’t have your cake, and eat it. Even in Pro-Land.

The Rhino...

I was out at a not very famous wave on the North Shore earlier today. To get there you walk past Sunset, around the top of the point and along the beach past the Roxy house, then you’ll find it.
The Mad Scientist took me there, and it was just us, 10 Hawaiian kids and the biggest, baddest, meanest longboarder you have ever seen. His back was about 4 feet wide, covered in coarse black hair and Hawaiian flag tattoos, and rippled with muscle. Because Greg Noll took the title of Da Bull, we’ll call this guy Da Rhino.

He sat out back all surf, moustache twitching, shouting at the pack of kids to take off. At first I thought he was shouting to all kids, but then I realised that he was just shouting for his slightly feminine, pale 15-year old son who could barely surf. This was not a very functional relationship.

Picture this: the kid sits wide, outside surfers like Jihad Kodre, Leandro Eastos, Antonio and The Mad Scientist. As soon as a wave came, Da Rhino would start glaring at all assembled like we were painted red, and screaming GO GO GO, PADDLE NOW!!! to his kid.

The kid, clearly intimidated, paddles half heartedly and then misses the wave.

Dad catches the next wave, and the WQS surfers then froth all over the next 10 waves, until dad returns. And so it would go.

Eventually the kid gets a little embarrassed and goes in and sits on the beach.

This freaks Da Rhino out, and he starts screaming at full volume to his son from the back, “Wha’da matta? You broke yo leash? You no need da leash!” Then he would turn to the pack and say, “He mightta broken his leash, bu’ he no need dat shit out heea bro”

After a while on the beach enduring his dad’s screams, the kid skulked back out to the reef. Da Rhino immediately paddled over to him and asks, “You OK? You broke yo leash? You inja’ed?”

“I’m good, thank you dad,” the kid responded in perfectly non-pigeon Obama English, “I just banged my knee a bit, and I wanted to go in and watch Andy Irons surfing Pipe.”

“Wha?” Da Rhino responded, “Da pro’s day ain’t here yet, day be somewhe else still.”

“Really dad, don’t you read the magazines? The pro’s are all here, and I want to meet Andy.”

And just like that, the kid had made Da Rhino look as redundant and old fashioned as a Brontosaurus wandering through a shopping mall. The massive, burly manifestation of Hawaiian heritage was reduced to a relic of a recent past swept aside by magazines and DVD’s and the Volcom House and energy drinks and pro surfing and all that our sport has become.

Then the next wave came through, and Da Rhino dropped in on Antonio.

Order was restored for the time being.

doldrums

The surf in Hawaii is not perfect.

Those mental images you have of endless waves, of pumping perfection, of consistently cranking peaks, of you and a dozen guys honing your big wave act in endless days of waves at Sunset. That’s not real.

The truth is, it gets flat and it gets cross shore. And it rains. And it does that for days on end. And that’s where we find ourselves today, on day two of cross shore knee high surf, and on day 3 of sub-par surf and rainy weather.

And when it gets flat, it also gets pretty boring. I spent all day trying to get some juicy gossip from somewhere, anywhere, but there is none. Truth is, the pro surfers were just doing stuff that normal people do, the stuff that they would probably be doing every day if they weren’t pro surfers.

They played tennis, they went to movies – James Bond is by far the most popular - and they stocked up on food from Foodland and ate chocolate cream pies at Ted’s. Some went to Honolulu, and a couple were cruising Haleiwa, poking through the surf stores, sushi bars and art galleries.

And still the rain fell - so much so that the municipality was forced to bulldoze open the mouth of the Waimea river this morning, making a wicked little sandbar in the process. And even though the Waimea shorey was only one foot today, it still packed enough punch for some solid body surfing. The sand build up had created an awesome A-Frame peak, with a double up left and right running off it following the same line every time.

Swells would stand up at Pin-balls, and then drop into the depths of the bay, before collapsing onto the beach. And that’s where we found ourselves all afternoon, getting barrelled on our tummies, sharing wave after wave, playing in the surf and sliding up the beach with tourists from Beijing, Tokyo and Chicago. The water was warm and soft, the sand crunchy underfoot, the sun hot on our skin and we were the only surfers on it.

I guess another cool thing about the North Shore is that even when it’s flat, it still does flat a whole lot better than any other spot you’ve been to lately.

Survival of the fittest

I am lucky to be writing this.

Seriously, this time yesterday there was a really good chance that at least one of my wrists would be broken, and that’s a best case scenario. Worst case, I would have been stretchered off the beach and had to catch the first flight home from Honolulu.

It all happened so quickly, I can barely explain how it went down. One minute I was surfing wobbly backdoor with Jamie O’Brien, Dustin Barca, TJ Barron and a couple of other locals, just minding my own business while they were getting their pick of the waves, and then it all went down.

A soft 3 footer came through, I saw Dustin Barca go left, and I took off, pumped twice and set up the cut back. As I followed through on my turn I saw the error of my ways, and he wasn’t pleased. Turned out that Dustin Barca didn’t actually go left, he just faded left, while Haole number one (that would be me), casually burned him, and then tried to cut back into him (what was I thinking?!?).

The situation was serious. The Oakley website describes Barca like this:

“Kauai’s Dustin Barca doesn’t crack under pressure. During the 2005 Pipe Masters Trials Barca broke his board in the semi-final and was forced to swim in for his backup board, but Barca wouldn’t be denied into the main event. The regular-foot bolted back out to the lineup and got the score he needed. Barca went on to the main event, where he went down in the second round. In 2006 Barca made a statement with a quarter Final finish. Growing up with guys like Bruce and Andy Irons, Barca’s surfing has progressed quickly from an aspiring junior to a fifth year pro rider with Oakley. Barca’s assault on the World Qualifying Tour in 2008 will only bring him that much closer in showing his true ability on the World Championship Tour.”

I am not featured on any websites, and I pretty much do crack under pressure. On the beach, according to AVG, Damien Fahrenfort was rubbing his hands together in anticipation of a “Beat Down,” and the beachfront was waiting for the whistle to sound from the Volcom crew, to incite the Wolf Pack.

I had to act quickly. It was too late to pretend that I was mentally deranged or that I was actually severely retarded, and my Hawaiian accent is so bad that there was no chance of me convincing him that I grew up at Velzyland. So I used my next best weapon, I paddled as fast as I could towards him, straight into the impact zone, sat up on my board… and said sorry.

Then I quickly turned around, made it through the next set and went and sat next to The Mad Scientist, who wasn’t very encouraging, “Don’t sit next to me,” he said, “Do you know what you just did?” I told him that yes, I did, and that’s exactly why I was sitting there. As Dustin Barca made his way back towards us, I tried to hide behind The Mad Scientist, but he is smaller than me, and it was a case of an elephant using a tutu for camouflage.

“I don’t drop in, so you don’t drop in. You hear me?” Said Dustin Barca as he stroked past us. “Ya, I’m so sorry bru,” was all I could utter. Then I went straight in, the words of someone wise ringing in my head: He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day,” or something like that.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Today I saw how the other half live. In the hopes of sneaking some uncrowded waves, we were on the hunt for surf early, and found ourselves at Off the Wall at 7AM. There was a sideshore wind on it, and the threat of a rain squall, so AVG and I joined Rudy Palmboom and Damien Fahrenfort for a coffee at their humble abode: the Billabong House.

The Billabong house is right on the beach, and next to the OTW pathway, so it’s perfectly positioned. From the path, you enter through a high teak gate into a lush garden that flows downwards to the beach, and upwards to a beech wood wrap-around balcony. Entering into the house, you walk through sliding doors into a huge lounge with a massive plasma screen on the wall, and a marble topped counter island in the open plan kitchen. The house is vast and decorated with famous surfing photos, and Luke Egan presides over it all – ordering the grommets to clean the shower and do the dishes.

It is a beautiful place from which to watch the drama at Pipe, Backdoor and OTW, and is reserved for photographers and WQS surfers sponsored by Billabong. Next door, in the bigger, more luxurious version of this house, you will find the rest of the team: Andy, Joel, Taj and Occy, cocooned in the Billabong WCT house.

Moving Eastwards from the Billabong compound, the next mansion is the Red Bull House. It’s a Cape Cod style Hawaiian beach house, complete with hip hop banging off their balcony and 4 or 5 bikini models drinking cocktails seemingly at all hours of the day.

Next door is the Oakley House, where Dave Weare and Greg Emslie are in residence. It is open plan and sunny downstairs, and the bedrooms on the second storey have sea-facing balconies. With a light wood interior and one touch home entertainment system, it’s French doors open up to a garden where bougainvillea and frangipani flowers frame the ocean view.

At all of the houses, surfboards broken and whole line the lawn - each board bearing the signature sticker placement of your favourite pro. None of the houses is more than 10 steps from the golden sands of Ehukai Beach, and at each house it’s a case of all the drinks you can drink and all the food you can eat. Boxes of wax and suncream are dropped off for every surfer to use, and ding repair guys are available on speed dial – just press 2 on the landline to get anything fixed within 24 hours. And, as if it could get any better, each house offers a panoramic view of the best surfers in the world demolishing some of the heaviest waves on the planet.

You can stay there too, rent free. Just survive the WQS, make the cut and get into the top 44. I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking that the WCT just might be the best surf club in the world?

The aloha spirit

Saturday on the North shore is a pretty slow day, especially when the mighty Pacific is becoming tamer with each passing hour. It’s a day of family, of mom and pop and the kids on the beach, of grandparents and dogs and ukulele’s down in the shade of a coconut tree, of beers and barbeques in the soft light of evening.

We were pretty slow today too. Dave the mad scientist and I were out damn late last night, and we slipped fully into the island vibe as we sat on Sunset beach with Antonio and Corey, eating our breakfast rolls from Ted’s Bakery. There we met Kai’loa, one of the most beautiful 3 year old girls ever, who walked up the beach to us and asked if she could “hang with the boys.”

She joined us on our bench and, while her dad watched from a picnic blanket in the shade, Kai’loa held my hand and offered us some fruit, and told us all about her orange bicycle.

Her dad came over to join us soon enough, arriving with a big smile and a warm “Aloha.” He works at The Hilton and it was his day off, and although he’d never met South Africans before, he welcomed us to the North Shore. We spoke until the sun got too hot, and then he and Kai’loa left with a “Mahalo,” and we hit the Kam Highway to seek out some waves that would be handling the shifty conditions.

We had a whole day to surf and a whole day to find surf, so we went way East - past V-Land - where we found an awesome blowhole that was spouting salty mist 20 feet into the air every time a wave hit the cliff below. We threw stones into it and watched them fly through the air in the vapour blasts, and then The Mad Scientist stood over it and nearly had his pants blown off his skinny legs (in case you’re wondering, he said it felt kind of sexy and terrifying at the same time).

We sat on the cliffs of Waimea and spoke story. We sat on the beach at Pipe. We climbed a palm tree. We cruised and felt the glow of winter sun on our backs. I think we even said Aloha once or twice.

Eventually we ended up taking the shortboards for a spin as the afternoon rain came through, and the horizon lit up with rainbows and to cap an almost perfect day, we’ve been invited for roast turkey dinner at our North Shore local mate Kai's house tonight.

As I said, it was a slow day on the North Shore today - but it was the day of a lifetime - because I truly felt the Aloha spirit for the first time.

It was in every moment of peace and in every word of welcome today, but most of all, it was in the freshly picked flower given to me by Kai’loa, who has dimples that shine on her honey-coloured face every time she smiles.

The Arena

While you were sleeping last night, Dave and I surfed Pipeline. You should have been there, it was just me and my 80 closest mates… and some of the guys I wasn’t even tight with, guys like Bruce Irons, Josh Kerr, Wardo and Jamie O’Brian, but that didn’t stop me from having fun.

Here’s the deal with Pipe.

It’s heavy, it’s shallow and it’s crowded, very crowded. It’s also not the big setup that it looks like in the magazines. It’s an A-frame peak, and as you paddle in you choose whether you’re going right or left. Or rather, the local pro’s and ex-world champions choose if they are going right or left and you look for anything they might not have picked up on. Like the insiders, or the wide one’s, or the death-drop-I-am-so-frikken-deep-there-is-no-chance-I-am-not-getting-hurt-on-this-one wave.

Fortunately for Dave and me, Off the Wall is close and it wasn’t too crowded, and the sun went behind the clouds. That meant that Dave got some great waves at Off the Wall, and the pro’s went in so I got lucky at Backdoor.

When it’s on Pipe has the intensity of a gladiator’s arena, with the Billabong house, Oakley house and O’Niell house cheering epic tubes, and claiming the biggest wipe outs. The Volcom house leads the charge every time, with whistling and screaming accompanying every set wave and whipping the crowd into a frothing frenzy. They really come alive when someone drops in as the crew runs onto the beach to cheer on the fight, kick sand on the loser and claim the victor.

For me, it was a life-changing experience. For Jamie O’Brian it was just another day at the office. As I sat on the beach after my surf, soaking up the moment, feeling the spiritual high of riding the one wave I have dreamt about riding for my entire adult life, Jamie took off on the back quarter of his surfboard. He broke his 6’3” on the wave before, and on 3 feet of board he raced down the line, before boosting into the air off the oncoming section. Holding his outside rail, he flew into space, landed cleanly, and then banged a couple of white water re-entries for good measure. The Volcom house cheered. And he smiled up at the crew. I looked on, stoked in the glow of it all. There might even have been a rainbow out at sea, that’s how awesome the moment was.

Then the cheers turned to whistles, as the crew rushed onto the beach. Someone had just burned one of their posse…

welcome to the North Shore

It arrived at 3AM. I know that because I woke up to a new sound. It was the regular crashing heartbeat of swell booming over reef and I just couldn’t get back to sleep again.

I also know that because the surf report says so. And this morning the surf report said:

“WELCOME TO WINTER!! New NW swell picked up overnight and is providing great waves for the entire north shore this morning at 15-18 ft, that’s triple overhead with occasional 20 ft. and good to epic conditions. Standout spots are showing some even larger rogue sets. Buoy 1 has consistent readings of this new swell of 12ft. @ 16 seconds...so look for a peak in surf sometime today. Light winds are on tap today, so it should be an awesome day of surfing for the country today.”

By 6:30 we were watching the moon set in the dawn light over washy, huge Sunset Beach, as waves slid through the morning-sick lineup unridden. A coffee and a Ted’s Bakery egg and bacon sandwich later, we were at Pipeline.

To get to Pipeline you walk across a grassy patch that leads you to that same palm fringed golden sand beach that you have seen so many times in video’s and photos. Thing is, video and photos don’t do Pipeline any sort of justice. It’s just so big, so heavy, and so close to the beach.

This morning, as soon as we parked the car, we could hear waves slamming and booming like 200 ton doors. Second reef was exploding, and white water avalanches were rolling over the 80 or so surfers in the water, leaving broken boards and bodies in their wake. We ate our sandwiches on the beach, and it felt as if we were in the lineup. We could hear the crowd in the water hooting, and smell the salty spray of each wave’s spit. We could even just make out Tamayo Perry's voice as he shouted at the Howlie's to clear out.

It wasn’t just Pipeline that was firing on all cylinders today either. Sunset improved throughout the day, Waimea was breaking, Haleiwa was cranking, Backyards was reeling and so were the outer reefs. Everywhere you turned, there was another huge wave running along another stretch of reef.

Imagine as many warm water, powerful big waves as you can surf, now imagine all of them crammed into a beautiful seven mile stretch of shoreline with one damn fine bakery in between.

Welcome to the North Shore baby…

journeys

Captain James Cook was the first European to record contact with the Hawaiian Islands, and that was in 1778.
230 years later, I was looking at the white caps of the vast Pacific Ocean out of the window of the plane from my vantage point in seat 7K, thinking of Captain Cook and what a phenomenal journey he made to get here - It took him 3 years to get here from London, via Australia and the South Pacific.

Turns out, it takes almost as much effort to get here from Cape Town. In fact, the journey from Cape Town to the Hawaiian North Shore is probably the longest any surfer can make to a surf destination.

It entails 30 hours of actual flying time across two continents and two oceans, transfers through 5 airports, and finally, because you can't get enough of a good thing, a 2 hour bus ride around Oahu to reach the North Shore.

Unfortunately for photographer Alan Van Gysen, he did all of the above, and then he arrived on the North Shore after dark, got dropped off at a random bus stop and still had to find the house. After dragging his radically heavy camera gear up and down the road above Sunset and Backyards for an hour as he retraced his steps 6 times to and from Ted's Bakery to make sense of Dave Richards' directions, AVG finally made Dave meet him at Ted's Bakery and walk him home. Apparently Dave doesn't know his left from his right and his instructions were all backwards as a result.
Here's hoping Dave knows his backhand from his forehand because the Reef Hawaiian Pro kicked off at Haliewa today. It's the first contest of the Van's triple crown, and want to know the good news? The swell is due to kick tonight, and Surfline is calling a North West swell of 3.3 metres with a period of 15 seconds.

The research phase

So a couple of days ago I had a couple of coffee's with a couple of Americans who lived on the North Shore for a couple of years.
They aren't a couple, they're just mates. When we connected they were very hungover mates, and drew me some sketchy maps of the 7 mile stretch of Oahu that we know as the North Shore, complete with landmarks like: pot hole, and tree. Their advice was simple: surf the close outs, that way you'll get lots of waves. I told them I was more interested in makeable barrels, and they told me that if I wake up early enough the chances that I can surf with only 40 guys are good, but the waves are worse in the morning. Then one of them spilled orange juice on the map and I had to mop it with a serviette, so now it's kinda 3D. They were American, so we high fived, and I left.

I was excited to have a 3D map, but a little disappointed with their lack of promises of empty surf, so I mailed a photographer mate who used to live in Hawaii. Unfortunately he totally agreed with them, but thankfully he didn't even attempt a high five... even though he did send me a Skype smiley emoticon.

Here's what he said:

"You are likely to find the crowds suffocating, both surfers and photographers - but Hawaii is like any other location in that a long period of crap conditions means it's very crowded when waves and good conditions do arrive. If the swell lingers for a few days, the intensity level drops a bit, and that's when you may be able to jockey yourself into a good position at Backdoor.

Locals can be defensive and aggressive - so don't be the sort who projects a lot of ego and seeks confrontation, but if there is even a whiff of trouble, simply leave the scene. You can't win an argument with locals in Hawaii during the winter season, it doesn't matter if you are in the right or not, so don't even try. No way to know who is on ice or has a gun, so best to keep a low profile. With all the testosterone on display, disputes are settled with violence in the Polynesian fashion, not discussion and compromise.

Theft is a daily occurrence on the North Shore, so never, ever leave anything of value in a parked car - not even for a two-minute surf check.

Hawaii has an estimated 40 000 ice addicts on O'ahu alone, and they service their addiction by stealing anything and everything they can get to sell or trade for drugs. The North Shore has always been an area of high theft and drug use - I lived in Hawaii for 28 years, so I should know. The police have begun shooting career car thieves at shopping centres like Ala Moana and Pearlridge, but there are too many of them and not enough bullets."

But then he said some good things too like, "Let's hope it's a good season, with light trades and consistent swell - Surfline does a good forecast for the North Pacific, so there is lots of info around. If a big 1040 mb high pressure fills the eastern north pacific with strong trades for weeks and frequent showers with minimal groundswell - well, there's always shopping in town or a movie..."

And if you don't believe him about the shootings part, check this out: http://www.khon2.com/news/local/16885611.html

So what have I learned from all of this? Well, OJ 3D maps are mad sticky, high fives make me feel a bit uncomfortable - kind of like when Victor taps Bakkies on the ass - and people who lived on the North Shore seem to be pretty jaded by it. Still, I have a dream to chase and a theory to prove. Plus it all just kind of sounds like your average Saturday morning at North Beach anyway... North Beach at 15 feet and grinding that is.

Welcome to the experiment

I did science at school. I was the pyromaniac who set things alight with the Bunsen burner and stole the matches. I was the kid blowing up stuff at the back of the classroom, I was the kid with the dirty lab coat that always had one sleeve burnt off it. I was the kid who for some reason always wore his plastic goggles, even if we weren’t doing any experiments that day.

I liked science class. Science is about hypothesis. Make an assumption, then prove it using any means possible like heat, movement, noise or combining it with other stuff until it explodes or burns off your moustache.

So here I find myself, with a hypothesis. I am sitting on a theory that needs proving, and it goes like this: the Hawaii of my dreams still exists.

You see, Hawaii has been prestiked to my walls since I was 8 years old. It has been imprinted into my brain since I could understand TV and it has been the centre of my universe since I started riding a surfboard. Hawaii is cooking waves, beautiful beaches, gorgeous women, sunshine, waterfalls, rainbows, barrels, aloha, Foodland, Lopez, Hamilton, Lifeguards, body surfing, palm trees, huge waves, lava rocks, cold beer, milk and honey.

It is the drama of the Pipe Masters, the broken dreams of big wave beatings, the glory and the praise. Hawaii is the shiz, the origin and the blackhole. Hawaii is this incredible dream for me, despite all the stuff I’ve been told about crowds, crime and contests.

So welcome to the experiment. I’m giving it a month to see if my theory is right, and I’m using any method I can backed up with heaps of research. I’ve recruited a mad scientist or two to help us out along the way, and there’s a whole lot of experiments to be done, because there’s a world of ways to prove this theory.

Is the Hawaii of my dreams still out there? Let’s find out.