Closing Time

This morning I stared blankly as the pineapple and sugar cane fields of Oahu raced past my passenger seat window, under the watchful eye of the stars of the Northern Hemisphere.

My Hawaiian adventure was over and I was on my way to catch the 9AM express flight to Somewhere Else.

In the past month I have paddled over the shoulder of second reef pipe bombs and stared into their golden green violent vortexes. I have surfed Waimea Bay, I was a board caddy in the Triple Crown, I body surfed thumping shorebreaks.

I got barreled at backdoor and Rocky Point, I broke boards, I witnessed drama and injury and fights and triumph. I partied in Honolulu, I made new friends and reignited old friendships. I surfed with World Champions and I surfed with hero’s. I nearly got my ass kicked. I ate sushi and Mexican and fresh pineapple and coconut.

I’ve had an amazing month.

Will I come back? Time and bank accounts will tell the answer to that question, and the world is a very big place, with hundreds of places I still have to surf. Still, I think that something about Hawaii got under my skin. It could have been the beauty, or the weather. Maybe it was the consistent waves, or the awesome power of the surf. Maybe it was the warm Pacific ocean, or maybe it was just Ted’s Bakery.

Those parts of Hawaii will not be easily forgotten, and are haunting me even now, in the departure lounge.

It’s funny, because the perfect song played for us on the radio this morning. I can’t remember who sings it, but it has one of those catchy chorus lines that doesn't let up, no matter how much other music you listen to to try and make it wash away:

“Closing time - every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end.”

That familiar roar of jet engines outside is telling me it’s time for a new beginning.

When does a surf trip end?

I think that trips end at different times for different people. Its one of those things that only surfers really understand I guess, because we all have our own rituals and habits (Jeez, that brings back memories of those old Instinct posters, with quotes from Shaun and Barton on them... anyway...).

For some, surftrips end at the airport, when they check in for their flights. For others it's that final, last moment when those mighty Boeing engines kick in and the plane hurtles down the runway, onwards and upwards. Thats really the ending, when you can’t catch any more waves, and you’re packed and done, and the trip is physically over.

Other people swear that it ends before that for them, when they drop a mate at the airport. They reckon that when the first one of your crew leaves, the adventure ends. Because that’s when you know your time is limited, and you start making all of the final preparations to go home. Mentally, your surf trip is done.

For me, the trip always ends earlier than that, and it always ends at the same time. For me it's when I catch my last wave at my favourite spot that I’ve travelled to. That’s always the moment when I know it’s finished.

You know that moment, it’s the last barrel, or the last turn, it’s when you kick onto the shoulder and think “That’s what I came here for,” and it can happen 5 days before you go home, or 15 minutes before.

That moment happened to me 2 days ago here in Hawaii. I was out at Sunset on a pushing swell and was ridiculously undergunned on my 6’3”, thanks to a photographer mate who told me that it was 4 feet, when it was actually nearly double that. To catch some waves, I migrated to the Boneyards bowl, which is normally a little more controlled than the West Peak. Two hours into my surf a wedging bowl came my way and doubled up on the reef. I have never paddled so hard for a wave, and as it drained off the reef, I crouched and slid into it, keeping every centimetre of rail in the thick, steep face to set a line before standing straight up in the tube, right arm raised over my head. I stood in the barrel for a long time, and Paul Patterson paddled over the shoulder staring in, hooting and hollering.

As I rode onto the shoulder from that tube, I knew that I had got what I went to Hawaii for, and I looked to the sky and said thank you.

Of course, there have been other clues that this trip is winding down too. I took Corey to the airport, where he was wheelchaired into the queue while I carried his boards. We cleaned our rented house because we have to move out, and Dave and Ant and Jacob are long gone. The crew who I shared all of this with have dispersed to California, London, Cape Town, Durban and Brisbane.There are still waves to be surfed, and final preparations to be completed before I pack my boardbag and get ready for the long flight home too, but it kind of feels like my brain left Hawaii when I came out of that tube at Sunset.

Because we all love to have the latest gossip

I don't think that anyone gossips as much as surfers. Our sport remains on the cutting edge of technology with images and movies beamed around the world in milliseconds from our compitions - letting our bored cubicle buddies sip their coffee and pretend to be working while they secretly watch the action at J Bay -yet, as a culture, we rely mostly on word of mouth.

Just think how many times you've asked some random guy with a surfboard how the waves were, and then told him that you had good waves at the same spot a few weeks ago on the Easterly swell, in the morning.

Like he cares.

But really, he does. Because in surfing, information is power, and knowledge is paramount to getting good, uncrowded waves. From these small discussions about surf rose the surfer's penchant for gossip - which makes our conversations about waves and sandbanks just a little bit more exciting.

With that in mind, here's the latest:
It looks like Jordy will not surf Pipeline because of the hip injury that he sustained in the Sunset contest. The big question is, will he get an injury wildcard for next year? And we all care because a no show at this stage of the game almost certainly sinks him. He will only miss one event, however, which weighs against him getting the wildcard.
Damien Fahrenfort has torn ligaments in his ankle on a wipeout at Pipe, and will not be surfing for four weeks. It looks like he and Jordy will be heading to California soon, to escape "The Rock."
Bobby Martinez has left His main sponsor, Reef Brazil, after a fight with one of the main guys at Reef.
Target (USA's Mr Price) are waving big money at Quiksilver team rider Dane Reynolds. Like really big money. And with Quiksilver USA cutting back across the board, he might be a little more interested than he would have before the financial crisis...

Now go and get some good waves. If you don't, at least you have something to talk about in the car on the way to the beach.

Avalon

“Remember the boy next door that played records all day, and at night kept you up with songs of his own?

He left home one day and was never heard from again. He moved to the big city, living in cheap motels, eating dollar hamburgers, working the boulevard with ex-models, thorazine freaks, transvestites, mothers, fathers, drunks, junkies and punk rockers alike.

He struggled during many long lonely desperate nights under the dizzying city lights but made a vow that he would never forget the magic in this world of the things he loved the most: his first fix, his first girl and most importantly the first time he rocked a mic.

Mickey Avalon has done whatever it took to get him to and off Hollywood Blvd. to invite you into his world. And I guess that’s what it is, his world…”

That’s what the website said at least. And Mickey was in town last night rocking at The Pipeline Café with The Pricks and Beardo. Our day evolved from sundowners on the beach to hamburgers and the next thing I know we were hurtling into Honolulu, hip hop banging and beers flowing in the party bus.

In case you’ve been sleeping, yesterday was a landmark day on the North Shore, celebrations were in order and Mickey’s gig was the celebration of choice. We arrived too late to catch the support acts and from his first song Mickey had the crowd rocking out, all the way to his closing track:

“My dick don't fit down the chimney
Your dick is like a kid from the Philippines
My dick is like an M16
Your dick- broken vending machine…”

You get the picture I guess.

We were on the dancefloor, pretty close to the stage, but up on our left was where you wanted to be: in the VIP section. There, pro surfers and icons were surrounded by groupies blond and beautiful, every one of them. There the pro’s had free vodka’s and Red Bulls, while we paid 130 Rand for 3 beers. There the pro’s were invited onto stage to hang with Mickey. And while Mickey was doing his thing, and his supporting strippers on stage were doing theirs, and Beardo, Mickey’s Frank Zappa lookalike friend was doing his, I realised something.

The North Shore of Hawaii is a scene driven by VIP passes, by who you know and what you can organise.

If you are on the inside and in the clique, it is the finest place on the world. You stay in your sponsor’s beach house, you are invited to every party, you have your choice from hundreds of girls every night, you get to go back stage at the concerts. You live la vida loca. It is the place where surf stardom becomes rock stardom- guitars replaced by boards.

And here surfers in the clique are rockstars, just like Bruce and Andy Irons who were on stage last night, spanking Mickey’s stripper dancers and singing the chorus. Flying and stumbling and happy and bumbling.

Outside of the clique, you surf for 3 hours and catch 4 waves. Outside of the clique you get your towel washed away by rogue setwaves on the beach, because you have no beach house to leave it at. Outside of the clique you pay too much for everything. Outside of the clique, you get your surf gear stolen by ice addicts, you get beaten up and photographers don’t want you to catch waves because it means that a pro won’t be in their frame. Outside of the clique you are either a fan or a witness, you get dropped in on and you have to work harder than anywhere else just to catch waves.

I am sure it will all be different after the contests, and that in February things might relax a little, but in the meantime, it’s pretty fun to be in Mickey’s world. Just ask Bruce Irons.

The aftermath

The celebration is over, I think. At least until tonight.

Yesterday was one for the record books. A day for the memory banks, a day to be remembered and recorded, a day that will live forever in celluloid and print – or at least until the next swell…

My mouth is furry and my head is dull, the surf is empty today and the streets feel deserted. The scaffolding is being torn down at Sunset, the World Cup of Surfing T-shirts are on discount sale, and the ASP World Qualifying Series has finished for 2008. The ocean is angry, and the clouds are galleons, sailing sluggishly over the Oahu mountains, rain their only cargo, the sticky humidity feeding them fuller, feeding them fatter.

Even Ted's is closed.

We are in the aftermath of one of the best early season days of the past 10 years - one that had veteran photographers calling Pipeline as perfect as it gets.

We are in the wake of one of the best contest days that Sunset has ever seen, and up and down the North Shore surfers are resting, repairing and regrouping. Journalists are dispatching their tales of drama and courage, and photographers are teasing editors with watermarked slide shows.

Whoever you are, if you surf, your year was defined yesterday. You will see yesterday for the whole year as brands feature their riders in their ad campaigns. You will gasp and froth at the video footage. You will watch your heroes who made it onto the WCT duel in Tahiti, J-Bay, Mundaka, Cloudbreak and everywhere else that the dream tour takes them. You too will bear witness.

The highlights reel looks like this:

At the O Neill World Cup of Surfing at Sunset, Dave Weare and Greg Emslie both requalified for the WCT at Sunset, confirming their status as South African surfing legends.

The top 15 of the WQS was decided yesterday and the 2009 WCT will be blessed with exceptional talent and a new guard of pro’s.

Jordy Smith cemented his reputation as the most exciting surfer in the world by ripping and tearing Sunset beach to reach the final of the contest with ease, throwing away 8 point rides on the way there and scoring the only 10 point ride of the day, and the highest heat score too. In the final he opened with a massive wave, an angry chunk of the Pacific Ocean bent on destruction. He made the drop but couldn’t get around the white water, was twisted underwater and hurt his right hip. He bailed the next set and his leash broke. His luck had run out.

The injury requires an MRI scan, happening today, and we wait patiently and hope that nothing serious has happened to South Africa’s boy wonder.

And of course CJ Hobgood won the contest.

At the day of the year at Pipeline, Liam McNamara caught the biggest wave of the day, backdooring a second reef bomb at Pipeline that you could easily have parked a double decker bus inside of. He stood tall, proud, arrogant, as the barrel vortex spun around him, a building in a tumble dryer.

Shane Dorian continued to amaze with his impeccable positioning and composure in the jaws of the beast, and after 2 days of incredible Pipeline emerged with the best barrels of the swell. On his last wave of the morning session yesterday, Dorian took off on a right, and drove hard with his back leg to get his line. His back fin and side fin snapped straight off with the combined force of Backdoor and back foot, sending him careening over the falls onto barely submerged reef.

Myself, Rudy Pamboom and about 70 other surfers had the bad luck of getting caught under a 15 foot second reef bomb. Underwater, above the roar of the massive white water, all you could hear was the snap and crack of leashes and surfboards. 12 boards in total were broken by the 2 wave set, and about 30 leashes.

Damien Fahrenfort landed on the reef straight onto his injured right ankle, and will be getting x-rayed for fractures today. He will not be surfing for a minimum of a few weeks, and we wish him a speedy recovery.

And of course countless surfers got the barrels of their lives.

The drama, anxiety and hype set with the sun yesterday, and up and down the North Shore, bass boomed and beer flowed. For the WQS surfers, and followers of the WQS, the year is over, and at last we can start having some fun.

Blue Crush is real. Remember it?

“… Nothing gets between Anne Marie and her board. Living in a beach shack with three roommates including her rebellious younger sister, she is up before dawn every morning to conquer the waves and count the days until the Pipe Masters surf competition. Having transplanted herself to Hawaii with no one's blessing but her own, Anne Marie finds all she needs in the adrenaline-charged surf scene ... until pro quarterback Matt Tollman comes along. Like it or not, Anne Marie starts losing her balance - and finding it - as she falls for Matt...” or something like that.

Well check this out. Yesterday, after fighting the war against terror out at rampaging Pipeline and watching Greg Emslie and Dave Weare get a step closer to sealing the deal, we celebrated life with an epic sundowner session.It started at 4PM, and ended at 8PM when myself, Dan Redman, Ricky Basnett and Rudy Palmboom somehow found ourselves walking through the gate of a nondescript looking house at Backyards.

Once inside the gate, I saw that we weren’t at just any house, we were at the Backyards channel marker house, recognisable from the water as the small white spot, with yellow trim and palm trees out front. And if ever there was a quintessential Hawaiian beach house that you have always imagined, this was it. We walked through the back gate and were greeted by a small lawn of soft lush grass, which hosted a barbeque spot, some loungers and stretched to a rocky border fringed with palm trees. Beyond the rocks lay the beach, and a lazy half moon sat in the sky shining silver on the wild surf, a moonshadow path reflecting across the ocean’s surface.

The house itself was wooden, with high ceilings and massive windows facing the shore, and inside on retro cane beach furniture sat Stephanie Gilmore, Karina Petroni and the Gadauskis brothers: Pat, Tanner and Dane.

The brothers are the ultimate California surfers: all blond hair, crazy blue eyes, golden tans and yes, they say dude. A lot.

One of them was fixing a surfboard, another was reading a magazine and the other was pretty interested in us. You are forgiven for not knowing who the Gadauskis brothers are, so here is a brief overview from the Vans Triple Crown media snack from yesterday:

“Californian Patrick Gudauskas took credit for the highest scoring ride of the day - a 9.66 out of 10, and his twin Dane took credit for the perhaps the biggest wave of the day. Both advanced, Pat eliminating his younger brother Tanner in their heat.
Pat is ranked 16th on the Qualifying Series and needs to make it to the semi finals of this event for a berth on the 2009 ASP World Tour. He was thoroughly barreled on the triple overhead wave and claims this to be the biggest surf he's competed in. Neither of his brothers can qualify.”

Stephanie, the 20 year old Australian two times women’s surfing world champion sat on one of the couches, her blond hair loose over her shoulders, quietly strumming a guitar. On another couch sat Karina, number 14 in the world, still in her bikini from the day’s surfing, eating spaghetti.

We drank beer and spoke surfing for a couple of hours. Someone sang a song, someone lit a fire. We were stoked on a killer day of surf, and sharing our experiences.

I was inside the dream lifestyle that is fed to readers of surfing magazines worldwide, that is sold in every Roxy store, and is behind a lot of girl’s first waves. It felt like I had wandered onto the set of Blue Crush, the movie that launched millions of per-pubescent girls onto their first waves.

And it made me think. Corporate surfing has become all about marketing and dream selling, product placement and endorsement, sales and stock prices. But sometimes, like sunbeams through cloud, the real spirit of surfing shines through. And that gives me hope.

Death or glory

I thought I had peaked early yesterday - and one thing I have learned in my short time on Earth is never to peak too early - so I was a little disappointed with myself.
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. 3^rd 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.

Was it worth it? You decide.

Sunsets and sex pistols

One of the most beautiful parts of the day on the North Shore is the sunset. The sun lights up the sky with hues of gold and pink, the wind drops down and the water reflects the sky on it’s unruffled surface. On the beach, people become silhouettes against the glow - cut out patterns in a neon golden backdrop - and families and couples are drawn to the shoreline to watch the surf booming against the shining sky. It’s magic hour.

I like to walk back home from evening surfs, as opposed to driving, to soak up these precious moments, and feel my feet sink deep into the coarse sand while my ears fill with the echoes and rhythm of crashing breakers pounding the shore. It feels rainbow coloured, like life should be.

A couple of nights ago, while I was soaking up one such moment, I saw a Japanese fella walking along the same shoreline. He was clearly dressed for Hawaii, in floral trunks and a neon pink and yellow Sex Pistol’s T Shirt, and was listening to an iPod. Now I am no fluent Japanese speaker, but I have always enjoyed saying hi to people, so I smiled and said, “Konichiwa!”

To my surprise, instead of merely nodding back to me, he took his headphones out of his ears and came bounding up to me.

“What is this place?” He asked.

“Well, erm, it’s called Rocky Point and it’s on the north shore of Oahu, Hawaii,” I replied, trying to be as clear as possible.

“Oh cool, North Shore,” He replied before smiling broadly and taking a deep breath, sucking it all in. “I am listening to Jack Johnson,” He confessed.

“Cool,” I responded, “You know that Jack actually lives up the road from here?”

“GET OUT OF THE SHITTY!” He shouted, slapping my back a little harder than he should have, “Were does Mr Jack Johnson live?”

Now I don’t know exactly where Jack resides, so I drew my new acquaintance a rough map and hoped that would be the end of it. As I crouched like a bushman and explained my rudimentary drawing in the sand to him, he beamed from ear to ear.“My name is Hiro,” He said, “I fly to Tokyo on tomorrow, and you have made my vacation worth my yen with this news.”

I smiled and introduced myself, not sure what to say and kind of feeling bad because my map was a bit of a lie really, but he wasn’t finished yet: “You like my t-shirt?” He asked, stretching it out so I could read the “Sex Pistol’s” part clearly.

“Yup, it’s cool,” I replied, “The Sex Pistols are one my favourite bands.”

“GET OUT OF THE SHITTY!” Hiro yelped again, and, grinning, spanked my shoulder blades way too hard this time.

“I am really a stokie!” He continued.

I smiled sheepishly, “You mean you are stoked?”

“Yes, yes, that is what I mean. I am stoked…. Just like you Daniel-san.”

And Hiro was right. Against the luminescent backdrop of an Oahu sunset, talking to a crazy Japanese tourist, with salt crusting onto my skin and that hypnotic shorepound in my ears, I couldn’t think of a single person who wouldn’t be stoked when the sun goes down on yet another day on the North Shore.

little league in the big leagues

Today I met the future, and her name was Milena.

I think.

It might have been Verena, or even Wilhelmina, but the surf at Wiamea is really, really loud, and I couldn’t quite catch it.

I saw Milena before I met her. With the surf too big at Pipe and Sunset, we checked Wiamea Bay and were greeted by a 3 wave 12 foot set. On the last wave we saw tandem surfers take off on a solid one and ride it to the channel safely. We didn’t think much more of it and The Mad Scientist made plans to throw himself into crazy Backdoor pits in the name of glory, while I decided to hit Wiamea for my first time.

I’ll spare you the drama and romance of my paddle out, realising a childhood dream and all that, and cut straight to the chase. There were about 12 surfers out at the back, and the waves were around 12 to 15 feet, and pretty inconsistent. After about 40 minutes the tandem surfers paddled back out, and I saw that it was a father with his daughter on the front of what looked like a 13 foot surfboard

She wore a floral bikini, with a blue rash vest over the top. Her long blond hair was past her shoulders, and a perfect white smile lit up her tanned face. Her legs were hooked under her dad’s arms, and he paddled the board behind her in his black trunks. She was tiny and looked no older than ten years old, but her father, Bobby, told me that Milena was 11. Like me, this was her first time out at Wiamea, and man was she charging.

After just a few minutes a set pulled through, and she immediately said, “Lets go dad,” as the first wave reared across the ledge. He paddled in with both arms, stood up and then she stood up afterwards, light enough so that she didn’t affect the board, while he set a rail and rode it out to the channel. She hooted and so did he, and they rode in towards Pinballs, before pulling off.

They were the most stoked people in the water, and Bobby was all little league parent. They would sit outside of us and chat, and then he’d turn to the line up and say things like, “She wishes Clarke Abbey was out, so I’d know where to sit to catch waves,” and everyone would laugh and, “We got a good one earlier, around 15 feet, and she wouldn’t let me drive home without getting just a few more under the belt.”

And the crowd parted for them. Waves would come, and as soon as they started paddling, all these big league surfers, inside and outside of them, would sit up on their boards and let them catch waves – sharing in her truly remarkable experience.

Today, at the age of 11, Milena did something that most people are too afraid to ever do. She surfed Wiamea Bay, a place that most choose never to surf. And she wasn’t just doing it, she was doing it with grace and style… and having the best time ever.