This takeoff was achieved through sheer terror. Watch
the video, watch the way Mathews wrangles the board, the wind, a
nose that wanted to sink. And then watch as his shoulder is almost
sheared off when he hits eject at the bottom. | Photo:
WSL
Mark Mathews describes what it feels like to have
your arm torn from its socket…
Earlier this month, the Australian Mark Mathews
rode what Shane Dorian would later describe as “one of the biggest
and heaviest waves ever paddled into.”
Shane should be Mark’s press agent, don’t you
think? It wasn’t true, of
course, the euphoria of a good day of big-wave surfing will fill
everyone with an orange glow and make even gunmen like Shane Dorian
high on hyperbole. But what a ride it was.
Under Maui’s lemony sunshine, the world’s best big-wave
surfers had assembled for the 2015 Pe’ahi Challenge. With only 45
minutes to surf before the start of the event, Mathews
promised himself a big north set. He watched Shane Dorian air drop
into a sixteen-storey bomb.
A dozen minutes later it was Mathews’ turn.
Too deep, too far out, on too-short and too-thin a board, the
Australian wrestled the takeoff, retrieved a submerged nose – all
to the delighted shouts of the surfers paddling out for the first
heat – but it quickly turned into a disaster movie, his shoulder
ripped from its socket, muscles and ligaments and whatever else
scrambled.
Bad? Yeah.
Last Tuesday, Mathews went under the knife at a Sydney hospital.
The surgeon described the view from inside as an “explosion” and
likened it to the mess he’d seen on a motocross rider eight
weeks previous.
Here, Mathews describes the day, the wave, the view from sixteen
stories up, and what it feels like to be 30 feet under, with a
flapping wing, and knowing a second twenty-footer is about to land
on your head.
I’m up to my eyeballs in snow and it is grand.
Perfect for Christmas. My thighs ache from days on the hill but my
spirit soars. The only problem is that my surf brain is barely
crawling. I’m thinking about powder, you see, instead of swell. And
also, all my wonderful surf friends are on vacation and so the
Coconut Wireless don’t ring.
Except there is a glorious intersection! Did you know Matt
Biolos is a total pow hound? He has a home in Mammoth and gets his
winter shred on. My best pal Derek Rielly spent time with him and
spoke of all the hiking and hunting for untracked lines and
riding.
Mr. Biolos is so fond of snowboarding that he has a Mayhem x Lib
Tech collaboration! It is a round nose fish, of course. The
mountain website evo says:
You’ll have the most fun on the mountain if your ride
received the personal treatment from Matt Biolos. With Matt’s help,
the Lib
Tech x Mayhem Round Nose Fish XC2 BTX Snowboard brings
rippers a missile for the entire mountain. With 630 square inches
of planing surface and a knife cut sintered base, this board can
carve its way out of ice or heavier snow. The XC2 balances out
rocker and camber so float and edge contact can peacefully coexist.
Translation – you can rip this thing in any condition. The UHMW
sidewalls and impact deflection will keep your board strong season
after season. If you have an insatiable appetite for carving and
speed, the Lib
Tech x Mayhem Round Nose Fish XC2 BTX Snowboard is your
compadre.
And I think I need one now. For sure I need one.
Lib Tech, in case you don’t know anything, make the finest
snowboards in the biz. By far. I ride one and it goes very well but
I’ll do a better review once I get my round nose fish. In any case,
Lib also makes a surfboard but they call it a waterboard and I
think I need one of those now too. I’ve only heard wonderful things
but I’ll also do a better review once I get one of those too. Merry
Christmas me (maybe)!
All to say, how great that seemingly opposite pursuits share
such wonderful people? And if you don’t snowboard you should. It
costs $100000000 but it is worth every penny. Also Gerry Lopez does
and he has never done anything wrong in his life.
P.S. Did you know that The Inertia has The Inertia Mountain, a
snowboarding site or maybe just include tons of snowboarding into
their existing site? Don’t worry. No one else did either. I’m
just letting you know that BeachGrit is not so bold as to regularly
fold snow into surf. This is a one-off! Until I get my round nose
fish and then it’ll be a two-off!
As a 14-year-old surfing prodigy, Strider Wasilewski used to
hunt the crowded Southern California coast for quiet surf
spots. One of his favorites was Little Dume Beach, near Point Dume
in Malibu, a crescent of sand half-hidden in a cove at the bottom
of steep bluffs.
In today’s New York Times, Strider’s Point Dume
house, nicknamed “the barn” is profiled in detail, including a
photo gallery.
Let’s read.
“As a 14-year-old
surfing prodigy, Strider Wasilewski used to hunt the
crowded Southern
California coast for quiet surf spots. One of his
favorites was Little Dume Beach, near Point Dume in Malibu, a
crescent of sand half-hidden in a cove at the bottom of steep
bluffs.
‘It was an untouchable
area,’ gated off and accessible only to local residents, Mr.
Wasilewski said. But he heard about a family that kept their gate
open. ‘They lived right by the trail,’ he said. ‘I used to run
through their yard. They would yell at me.;
“Lily Harfouche, a real estate agent and
occasional surfer who spent part of her childhood in Malibu, ran
through the same yard with her teenage friends to get to the beach.
‘You go down there, and it’s you and a handful of people,’ Ms.
Harfouche said. ‘It’s so incredibly beautiful.’
“These days, Mr. Wasilewski, 42, and Ms.
Harfouche, 36, are married (they met at a reggae concert on the
Santa Monica Pier) and live with their three young sons on Point
Dume, in a simple open-plan house they call ‘the barn’. But it took
the couple several years and several moves to arrive at their
childhood stomping grounds and their pared-down life.”
The main living space is basically one large
white room with 18-foot ceilings and tall windows. “The room isn’t
gigantic in terms of square footage,” Mr. Wasilewski said, “so the
air and the whiteness gave it an endless feeling.”
How did he afford such a dazzling house?
“Their first place was farther down the
coast in Venice, where years ago Mr. Wasilewski had bought two
rundown bungalows on the same property. When he was off
in Hawaii or
elsewhere chasing big waves, Ms. Harfouche looked after the homes.
The couple fixed them up and eventually sold them, discovering a
shared interest in home renovation and real estate.
“They next moved to Malibu, where they
repeated the buy-fix-sell process three more times. Mr.
Wasilewski’s surfing buddies, many of them tradesmen, were drafted
as the work crew. And Ms. Harfouche, who spent part of her
childhood in small New York apartments (her parents were actors),
began yearning for a big house.
“So with their profits, the couple bought a
place on a one-acre lot on Point Dume, took it down to the studs
and created a dream home on the hillside…”
Who does a North Shore Christmas better than Mason
Ho?
Mason Ho and the hell that is the area between Rockpiles
and Log Cabins are a never ending source of joy. Toss a
Santa hat in the mix and you’ve got a beautiful spice for your egg
nog. Here’s to wishing you all a dominant
Chronica!
I’ve got a lot of cooking ahead of me today. Our
Chronica feast is going to be especially lovely, the
Safeway had a sale on lobster tails (only $5 each!), so I bought
the lot.
People in line behind me were pretty bummed, which fits
perfectly with the spirit of the holiday.
The Inertia writers have one wish for Christmas.
Help Santa! Or The Mad Hueys!
Christmas is just the dreamiest of times. The
world covered in a blanket of fresh snow represents pure
possibility! Anything can happen. The lion can lie down with the
lamb. The stone cold surf journalistics can become super cool
chillazzz.
How does this last one happen? Ask The Inertia staff writers
‘cuz Santa be busy!
First, apparently, use a word that the kids were using two years
ago in the title. Like “ham.”
Second, employ regional slang like “shoeys” ? because the kids
know that you down with foreign culturez, girlfriend.
Third, write about Australia’s Mad Hueys lots. They hip, yeah?
They drankin the beerz and they girlfrienz gettin the titties
out!
Fourth, be the home of thinking surfers!
And then dizzzzone my homies. Cool is as cool does. And now you
cool as ice!
