Four dazzling waves from 2015. The jazz-like
perfection of a world champion.
There’s never any bullshit with Mick Fanning.
He’s no ass-out trapeze artist like Gabriel. There’s no crazy jive
like Filipe. He’s not jamming junk down your throat like Julian
Wilson.
Three world titles, a probable forth by the time December comes
around. Who’s going to argue with that?
I assembled this compendium of Mick’s nine-point plus rides from
2015 to disprove the central theory in a story that claimed judges
were pushing him through heats with all their weight.
Let’s examine the charge.
“Enter the Mick Fanning Complex. The judges (and commentators)
apparently love nothing more than watching the EXACT same
combination of turns on the outside to a half-layback safety snap
on the inside close-out section. Predictability would be an
understatement. Mick Fanning is often hailed as the most consistent
surfer on tour. No shit he is. The dude has been doing the exact
same thing for the last 15 years. Look at any contest footage (or
video parts for that matter) of his over the course of his career.
Besides his boards and boardies getting a bit shorter, he looks,
literally, exactly the same. Forget “do it in your sleep” Mick
could do it in a fuckin’ coma.”
I can’t figure the whole switch out. What’s wrong with a system
that rewards perfection of technique? Mick Fanning is a like a jazz
musician blowing a horn and being really part of it. It’s part of
him.
How about teaching your gal (or stud) to surf? The
whole claiming thing?
I shot a nice sized omilu (blue-fin trevally for all you
haole types) yesterday at 65′ deep, about a half-mile off
Kauai’s South Shore.
For deep-ish dives I like to use my 130cm gun. It’s got good
range, and enough power to take down pretty much anything in the
ocean smaller than a tuna. It kicks like a mule though. You really
need to lock your wrist and elbow before taking a shot.
I know this, the recoil has smashed the loading butt into my
face on more than a few shots. But the fish was under a ledge and I
couldn’t get a good angle without repositioning myself and spooking
the thing, so I took an awkward limp wristed shot. Got smacked in
the mouth pretty good, little bit of a fat lip. Which sucks when
you’re two atmospheres down and have been holding your breath for
over a minute.
Landed the fish though.
The point being, we all do stupid stuff, from time to time.
Here’s some dumb things surfers like to do, even though we
should all know better.
Teach your partner to surf
It seems like such a good idea. You and your partner of whatever
gender strokes your fancy sharing an evening glass off. The sun
setting on the horizon, light playing off the ocean surface,
refracted rainbows dancing in the droplets caught in your
eyelashes. So romantic, so amazing, so mistaken.
The reality is that you’ve got a new surf buddy, but they suck,
and you can’t just ditch them when the waves get good. Overhead
barrels at your favorite spot? Tough luck, you’re driving the coast
looking for waist-high garbage they can splash around in.
No matter how much you love someone, there will be times you
just don’t want to spend another second looking at their stupid
fucking face.
And take it from me, a guy who’s shared his life with the same
woman for the last fifteen years, long-term relationships aren’t
always a walk in the park. No matter how much you love someone,
there will be times you just don’t want to spend another second
looking at their stupid fucking face.
Say goodbye to using surfing as an escape, a chance to recharge
and realize how little all your petty problems matter compared to
the love you two share. Because they’re right there on the
shoulder, flailing around like a drowning seagull, about to drop in
on you.
Put your board on the roof without strapping it
down
A gust of wind on a calm day, a flying board, that awful
crunch that makes you cringe before you even turn around
to inspect the damage.
Or you go even further, backing out of your parking spot,
hitting the brakes, thinking, “What was that noise?” as it clatters
to the ground, then backing right over the top of your new 6’0″ in
the El Porto parking lot.
Secure your board before you do anything else. Once that baby’s
strapped down tight you can go ahead and change, or shoot the shit
with your buddies, or ogle that hot chick doing yoga on top of the
berm.
Buy a board based on how well your favorite pro rides
it
I’ve never ridden a Hypto Krypto. The board looks fun and all,
short and fat and flat usually makes for a good time. It’s
definitely marketed well, Anderson uses the thing to make life look
so damn easy.
But I’m not him, and neither are the ten million kooks I’ve seen
flailing in the whitewash on tiny epoxy import Kryptos they picked
up after reading some rave review online. Sure, homeboy can gush
about how well his 5’4″ works in any condition the ocean can dream
up, but he’s one of the best surfers in the world. What works for
him doesn’t really translate for us mortals.
Same deal with every shape that Dane dreams up.
Claim a barrel
I was nineteen, a week into my first trip to Costa Rica, and
surfing super fun overhead barrels at Playa Avellanas. It was a
magic session, some of the best warm water surf I’d ever
experienced, a filmer friend was on the beach capturing all the
action. I linked into the best barrel of my life up to that point,
six seconds long, so deep, so stoked. I couldn’t wait to see
the footage.
Later that night I got my chance. It was a two-second head dip.
Bent at the waist, lip hitting my back, so awkward and terrible.
And then I claimed it. Hard. So hard it’d make a brazzo pro wince.
Shouting and pumping my fist and carrying on like I’d just won the
world title.
Thank god it was 1999 and uploading embarrassing shit to social
media wasn’t a thing yet.
The madmen who have a kink for giant surf will
always fascinate me. I wait for their feats, as northern hemisphere
winter rolls around again, with bated breath. This year’s El Nino
is certain to go absolutely wild, they say, and so I will watch the
purple blobs with even more anticipation. How do they do it? How do
they sit out in rolling insanity and then throw themselves over the
ledge? How? How?
South African filmmaker Michael Oblowitz shares my driving
curiosity. Before his latest, Heavy Water, there was
Twiggy. He followed his countryman and champion big wave
surfer Grant “Twiggy” Baker out to Mavericks and captured the fury
of the ocean and was captured himself. He tells me:
“I was able to go undercover out there with a super fast twin
hulled speedboat and two ultra high speed Red Cameras with
Hydroflex mounts and gets as close to the action as possible
without a jet ski or swimming. The incredibly powerful slow
motion close up footage of Mavericks breaking became the impetus
along with meeting Nathan for Heavy Water.”
And I get it. I get not being able to tear eyes away from the
horrible sea at its worst. We share an addiction, I suppose. Not
the addiction of those who ride but the addiction of those who try
to figure out what dwells in the heart of the exceptional man.
Twiggy and Heavy Water are two sessions on a
therapists couch. Two stabs at defining the closest thing on earth
to Nietzche’s ubermensch.
Thrive on the energy this predatory little man
expels…
This three-minute short of Mason Ho at Sunset
Beach is something that bears watching. It constitutes,
according to its architect, 26-year-old Mason, of ” trying a new
7’1” from last year’s quiver at Sunset Beach on Oct.3.2015. I
grabbed it, surfed it and put it away thinking it was my 6’10″,
then we went through the clips and I realized it was my 7’1″.
Filming by Rory Pringle.”
There is also, he writes, “footage from Nick Pollet of my first
trip to Chopes (Tahiti). There was a clip or two not used in the
Rip Curl edit that I kinda liked (the beat downs). *CANT wait to go
back there with MY boards and APPLY what I’m thinking. The song is
Neil Young, Cowgirl in the Sand …chopped.
Anyway, the Sunset gear reminded me of an interview I did with
Mason after he won a contest there two years ago. The story was
called Mason Ho on the Horns of a Sunset Bull.
Forever does this little maestro dazzle me.
Is that the Sunset Master? The Prince of
Power?
MASON: (Laughter) Fuck. That. Tell me about your speech. There may be a pedantic troll or
two online who’ll say otherwise, but, personally, I loved it. So
light, so breezy, so you! Oh my gosh, that thing is…
terrible. I don’t really remember it to be honest. I just remember
screwing up. You even used the word “surreal”! I just
remember when I said that everyone kinda looked at me, like… what?
That was funny. I shoulda just shut up. You grew up at Backyards, there, did you always have
yourself pencilled in for a win at Sunset some day?
Driving past there every day I try and make some eye contact with
it and think about it, like, “Come on, I gotta win one time, I
gotta win this place.” That was super cool to win, right there. But
it’s a baby step. It feels like a little baby step. I want more,
yeah. I want more. What did your dad, the four-time winner, say before the
final? The only thing he did ask, I remember, I’d run over
to wax my board real quick and he called and my friend’s, like, “Oh
Brah! Your Dad’s on the phone” and then I talked to him and he’s,
like, “What, do I have time? I wanna run home and grab a beer! Can
I drink one before your final?” And I’m, “No you got no time, you
gotta stay right there” ’cause he was helping me spot the lineup. I
said, “You can’t go anywhere. I’ll be lost if you’re not there in
the spot!” And he’s, like, ok whatever, and then when we started
the final I was looking for him and I couldn’t find him. A couple
of minutes later I saw him back in his spot and I was like, that
fucker went and grabbed a beer! Heavy! You throw much of a party? Yeah, man, we had a
little thing for sure. I came home and… yep… drank a couple of
beers with Pottz (Martin Potter). And then ate a little bit of food
and then we dug out. We went to the Surfer Bar (at the Turtle Bay
Hilton), just snipered it. Got pretty screwed up.
You want to light up on the high point? To be honest, I forgot a
little… spurt… of it. But the craziest thing I witnessed that night
was Burger’s (Keoni Nozaki) entry into the place. I was there
already. I went with a couple of friends and we couldn’t get in
touch with Cheeseburger and we’re in there and we’re all taking
this group photo and it was mellow, everyone was buzzed, it was
pretty cool, and all of a sudden Burger came in and the Surfer Bar,
they’re already timid on all of us, we’ve used all our strings
already, so any time we show up the question is, if they’ll let us
in or not. Are you going to be mellow this time? Yeah, please, let
us in! So we’re trying to be good and Burger came in just so hot.
Yeah baby! Screaming at the top of his lungs. Jumping up and down
trying to break the floor or his ankles, whatever could break
first. I kept looking at security and grabbing Burger by the mouth
and, like, “Brah, shoosh, shut up, you gotta be quiet!” And Burger
was screaming FUCK THAT! FUCK YEAH! YEAH! YEAH! Luckily, we got
away with it. That was the high point for me. When you win a big contest, experience suggests pretty gals
want to pal up. How was your experience? Ho ho ho. I
thought I got a pretty good chick that night. I mean, I didn’t know
where all the girls were, it was all rained out everywhere, so we
got lucky. The Surfer Bar had the usuals, a nice little group of
chicks and we all picked one and went our ways. I was stoked ’cause
I always thought that if I won I was gonna bomb and get a nice hot
girl and dig out. It was funny cause we did it like we do it every
night when we go out. I had a chick at the Surfer Bar and I
could’ve gone home and shut it short but then I was like, we’re
gonna go, we’re doing the rounds. So we ended up a the Oakley house
and just staying til four in the morning. And I remember towards
the end of the night I was, like, yeah, this is how I want it, this
is how I want to do it every night, just looking at a couple of
handfuls of the boys, a couple of chicks, the last ones who could
handle. Gals try harder for champs. I think she gave me a
little more time. Usually, they would’ve been, fuck this guy
already, I can’t believe he’s making me wait this long. But she was
kicking back… kept checking on me… and I was, yeah, this
is sick… Ain’t it great being a champ. Ha! Fuck! I don’t
know. Being the champ. Fuck. It feels super good to win but I just
remember the whole ceremony, you get chaired onto this podium first
and you’re sitting there all by yourself. It’s all lonely. I was,
like, come on boys, hurry up and get on with this thing. It feels
awkward winning. But, it’s cool, I live for that.
And therefore we should ice a few man-eaters.
Here’s why…
On Saturday, broadsheet newspaper The
Australian, published an anti-shark piece, one in a series
by Fred Pawle.
The story is called Surfing, the pursuit that opened
war-torn eyes to natural pleasure and it is tumescent with
surfing’s rich history. It’s this history, writes Pawle, that puts
the surfer above the man-eating shark in importance, at least when
it comes to near coastal waters.
Considering the story is locked behind a (not altogether
unreasonable) pay-wall, let’s examine as much as is legal to print
online:
“When people say ‘stay out of the water’, they are almost always
referring to surfers. That’s not only because surfers are the most
prominent victims and critics of sharks but are in the ocean for
purely hedonistic, and therefore insignificant, reasons.
You want to manage shark numbers so you can go … surfing? Gaia’s
worshippers are infuriated by any form of deliberate ‘human
intervention’ on the environment, but they are especially scornful
of anyone whose objectives are merely recreational.
“What these landlubbing preachers fail to realise is that
surfing helped shape the happy, optimistic, prosperous world in
which they live. Surfing was, according to some historians, the
discovery that helped awaken European civilisation from its
puritanical, introspective, morbid dreariness and gave it a new
reason to love life.
“When French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville sailed into
Tahiti in 1768, he discovered what he thought was the Garden of
Eden, where food was plentiful and life was leisurely; the moderate
climate made clothing barely necessary; the people were athletic,
healthy and beautiful; and polygamous sex was a recreational
activity. “The very air which the people breathe; their songs,
their dances, almost constantly attended with indecent postures,
all conspire to call to mind the sweets of love,” he wrote in his
memoir. “Accustomed to live continually immersed in pleasure, the
people of Tahiti have acquired a witty and humorous temper, which
is the offspring of ease and of joy.”
“Surfing was an integral part of this strange new culture.
William Anderson, a surgeon on Captain James Cook’s journey to
Tahiti, described in 1777 a man riding waves in a canoe. It is
thought to be the first written account of surfing, and ends thus:
“I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme
pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the
sea.”
If Fred Pawle’s name rings familiar, it’s because he has a
gilded career as a writer. In 2008, he was nominated for a Walkey
Award, Australia’s highest journalistic honour, for a story I
commissioned about surfing’s first openly gay pro surfer, Matt
Branson.
Lately, he’s been painting an apocalyptic picture of the Byron
Bay area as besieged by great white sharks. He ain’t wrong, at
least according to my sources.
“But, sadly,” he writes, “the ‘stay out of the water’
crowd is winning. Many surfers in northern NSW are adhering
to the advice and leaving their boards at home. If they are
surfing, they are seeking the most crowded breaks, which is not
what surfing is about. The effects on coastal communities,
especially those relying on surf tourism, has been significant and
unnecessary. If anything, it is the environmentalists who are
being the most self-indulgent here. And they are forcing
ocean-lovers to pay the price.”
Is Fred Pawle an audacious visionary or is he a puss-puss
who shouldn’t watch so many shows on Shark Week?
