“Did you see the Nazare footage from yesterday?”
(Editor’s note: Introducing a new genre of surf writing, VAL-lit, where surfers marinated by many seasons describe encounters with vulnerable adult learners and non-surfers.)
Tavarua, 2004
I couldn’t get the rope through the leash plug on my new gun.
A hand reached out with a fin key and I pulled the rope through just as we anchored.
I hope that I thanked him. He did smile.
The boat was settling in as I heard a voice behind me, a realtor from South Bay, say “I hope it’s big”.
The Manhattan Beach Century Twenty One Realty office was ready!
Funny, I remember that quote till this day.
Boatman immediately jumped off the bow and I jumped too.
You’ve heard of cardinal sins… here’s a cardinal rule.
If you pull up to surf and the seasoned boatman is frothing, you should be too.
“Is the scaffolding your lineup?”
“It’s a point of reference,” he scowled.
Then he stared at me, asking if I was going on the next wave without speaking a word.
I had no choice.
Three strokes in and I had ridden the length of the reef almost to the boat.
Pretty much point A to B surfing on a 7’2”, but a lot of work connecting dots.
Half the guys in the boat never paddled out. Stage fright. Including Manhattan’s Century Twenty One Realty’s big-wave warrior.
I flew home with big Cloudbreak on my resume and I was internally proud as fuck. Also scored four days of mostly windless Restie’s, well overhead… pure gravy as the meat and potatoes was eaten at Cloudie.
Each of us has our unique ladders in life and I had just climbed mine.
Ventura, November 2020
Minding my own business checking anemic surf, an attractive woman approaches holding her coffee in one hand and her phone in the other… tuned into a Surflie video.
“Hey, have you seen the Nazare footy? Biggest waves ever ridden! What’s the biggest wave that you have ever ridden?”
Suddenly twenty feet sounds like miniature golf.
“Twenty feet? Wow, that girl yesterday surfed an eighty-foot wave!”
“Yeah, but I sat in a position that wasn’t safe and I dodged bombs to paddle into gems and almost drowned a few times… but yeah, it was only twenty foot.”
She looked at me as if some girl in Portugal made my experience obsolete. She tried to hand me her phone to see the video, but I declined.
I think the girl in the video turned out to be Nic von Rupp, but his hair is kind of long and the idiot that I am dealing with is “conservative”… which really means she is incurious and sure of her opinions.
And she won’t wear a mask. Made a point of telling me because that’s why she thought I declined to touch her phone.
Apparently, she drives her thirteen-year-old grandson to surf class three days a week and he gave her his password for premium surflie. Now she’s totally connected.
More than I am.
She sensed a lull in our conversation as I pet her ten pound dog, cute as fuck, but so tiny.
“My forecast reads that it will get big on Thursday, maybe you can catch that eighty-foot wave at the end of the week?”
I did what I do in these situations. I asked a question about her appearance and we stopped talking about surfing.
Well, she talked, but like I said she was very attractive and I liked her dog so I listened to her explain the difference between cashmere and cardigans.
Even enjoyed several touches of the magic fabric…
Hometown, November 2020
My visit to the Organic Farm Cart went similarly later that day.
“Did you see the Nazare footage from yesterday?”
There is no way this woman surfs or she’s been very secretive with me for a decade. Let’s just say she isn’t active or fit.
“It’s kind of a different sport, but I’ll google it later, what are you cooking tonight?” I tried to change the subject.
It’s like the entire world is infatuated with a surfing stunt performed yesterday, and the rest of us have to respond to it.
When you see a jet-ski run along the lip line of a sixty-foot wave, you know there is no lip line. No Darren Handley going over the handle bars. Not enough transition in the wave to turn let alone put a ski off the track.
It’s vanity heroism.
A rider is dumped at the bottom of a standing wall and photographed making a world record before the lip crumbles above. I assume that the crumble is the top of the measurement.
Then it‘s a race to the shoulder that is filled with jet-ski assistance if multiple oxygen suits isn’t enough for the occasional plunk.
I do not disparage tow in surfing at Nazare, it’s like finding an empty amusement park and milking the rides that are incredibly photogenic.
Problem is, in a weird global way, chop-hopping a moving wall of water has come to define our (surfing’s) greatest accomplishments via social media’s adoring embrace.
Has Instagram replaced the Bible for sheep?
Sorry, rhetorical question.
And why… bear with me angry brethren who hate board theory… why would you tow into giant mush with such a little board?
I fucking hate the mid length bullshit, BUT, if you are not going to even attempt turns and there is NO tube, why not plow through all the cheddar with more foam because at best, Nazare is point and go surfing, nothing more…
One big swoop on a eighty-foot wave and you’ll be signed to John John’s contract.
Like Tom Carroll reinvented surfing Pipe with one turn.
You’ll wake up feeling so Laird.
Mexico, 2017
I remember sitting in this boil field. Well inside the position of the swing-wide deep-water sets, and playing games with my mind. Betting on the swell direction that pinwheels the point with a keen eye to a horizon turning black toward the channel.
You win, you lose. The casino is open and it’s only skin in this game. And lungs.
No jet-ski’s in sight. No crowds on the bluff. Just me, my decisions and continuous three-storey houses marching in unison with my fate.
Charmed was the best way to describe my first two hours. DOH+ perfect point break and the swing wide wash-outs occurred coincidentally during my hike back to paddle outs.
So far, I had dodged their bullets.
I giggled at my good fortune as another gem stood up and bent around the first crop of boils. I dug hard, but the wave bent too much and swept under my position.
Took a few seconds to appreciate the light offshore running down the line away from me, probably should not have. The turn back out to sea revealed that the deep-water, swing-wide set was standing up and trapping me in position.
The violence underwater is difficult to explain to someone uninitiated. Surfacing through deep foam, I had reached the channel in between the point and beachbreak which I DID NOT want to explore at this size.
Composing myself and repositioned at the big peak, those damn perfect runners kept luring me back into the field of boils. The deep-water peak was pretty much a takeoff and a few snow boarding turns while the sets that hugged the point could be tagged over and over and over and over.
Like the sirens call, I was seduced back to my blessed boil field.
You know you’re making that mistake, but you have to.
Think I caught two, three waves when destiny intervened conspiring with the dropping tide, another swing-wide set loomed.
Not sure how my leash held, but I got mowed.
Nearly drowned twice in one half-hour, alone at sea and almost poetic if not for my heart beating out of my chest.
It’s about as opposite an experience to Nazare as it gets.
How can I explain that to the hot surlie grandma or the flower groupie at the produce stand?
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You have me confused with Surf Ads, who writes fiction.
I don’t know Wiseau and didn’t watch IGH with the sound on….
Just a day in the life.
Don’t want to downplay the shark and Coffey stories (they are almost always funny) but stories like these keep me focussed on the article as opposed to the comments. Great read mate!
Sorry, I didn’t celebrate your opinion
lame story bro
I’m pretty sure this is pre-dementia.
Interesting lack of self knowledge
Cannot agree more. For some moderate reward, we could track down an average Lake Havasu wake board shredster behind an $$$$ couch-boat and rope him to a jet ski at Navarre. Good chance he’d win the bet without incident. Not so if he had to paddle. In fact this is true for most real surfers who paddle -at size, alone. These days, I avoid sessions that leave me wondering how I’ll get back to the beach.
put the mayonnaise down.
Do you think Von Rup or Maya Gabeira have navigated equally tricky paddle situations as your Mexico story Hippy? If so: does that negate your whole point or nah?
No, it’s a false equivilancy argument. In no way do I compare myself with anyone in this story… my personal story and peoples reactions to a “news” event coincide, that is all.
Reading comprehension, whoever is hiding behind MFK….
Not saying your directly comparing yourself to them but the whole point of the thing seemed you think battling nature hands on is way more impressive (something I agree with). Then I thought: if the people doing the whole jet ski nazare thing have done both I’d have to respect it/them. Wondered if you felt the same
I wasn’t making a statement about being impressive, though I do favor battling nature on my own. I don’t like ski’s as a rule, but sometimes they are necessary.
But towing into Jaws is much more impressive than Nazare. With the close proximity and cliffs overlooking a very photogenic wave, I question the results of the “record breaking rides” at Nazare.
Jaws seems way gnarlier to me.
But that is my broader point. The scariest place I have surfed was Teahupoo. How do you explain to a non surfer that DOH Chopes (12′ faces) is gnarlier than 80 foot Nazare? ( I have not surfed Euro except Tel aviv which may not be Euro).
Now what do you think about my design question? Why do people ride wake boards on such broad canvass’? I think a longer board would allow the riders to draw much more critical turns that the short rail line of the wake board that can’t project.
I have respect for the Nazare riders…. but I don’t put them in the class of the Jaws crew, not by a country mile.
Id say (without knowing shit about big wave surfing) Nazare takes more balls (and a skilled ski driver to tow you in at the right place) than a rider’s skill. I also think aussies have grown up in an environment where we think if someone called Steudner can do it it can’t be that hard (in the skillfully sense). Near Certain death on the rocks on a big day if they can’t get to you though. Naxto Gonzalez paddle in barrell at Nazare one of the more fuckef up things I’ve ever seen. I’m sure they will start riding longer boards when people start pushing themselves more and paddling bigger days at naxare, but yeah, good point in projection if small biards, guess they re not carving anyways when they tow in just going straight or diagonal sideways. I don’t think towing in at jaws is more impressive, cos there’s no cliff to get swept into.
Good stuff Hippie. I liked those surf yarns. They reek of pure salty essence, the frothy elixir of life our fellow wave addicted brothers and sisters live for. Keep powering.
What do you mean by
…”as I pet her ten pound dog”…?
Ha! When I read this I immediately thought of Nick Cave’s song “No Pussy Blues” –
“I sent her every type of flower
I played a guitar by the hour
I patted her revolting little chihuahua
But still she just didn’t want to”
Haha HA Handley GOTTEM
Isn’t it called Farm Cart Organics, Itchy Scratchy?
Saying the height of the wave is all that matters is like saying the length of the dick is all that matters. Nazare is like a foot-long dong that’s less than an inch wide. Statistically impressive if we’re going on length, sure. Not many people are capable of riding it, sure. But as a surf porn voyeur, I remain flaccid from the viewing experience.
This is like a discount john krakauer except i quit reading after the political bullshit
How big is 20ft American by Australian standards? 8ft? I’m so confused by the conversion. One time this fat little jew boy was telling me about how some beachie was amazing last week and about 8ft. I dunno if you’ve ever tried surfing an 8ft straight hander at your local beachie but it’s not fun. I don’t reckon this cunt was gonna have much success duck diving his 7’2” epoxy in that shit. Which leads me to believe his 8ft was more like 3-4ft. Discuss.
How did the man reveal himself as Jewish? A yarmulke? Was especially clever and lovely?
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Guy is a genius.
Upvote for correct spelling of yarmulke. Proves you are urbane and learned, DR. So what does Chas bring to this partnership of yours?
It was all of the above and the fact that he had brought a briefcase to the pub on a weekend. But you raise a good point – I cannot be sure because I didn’t ask him if the briefcase contained the remnants of his foreskin
If it is a legit 8 foot day in SoCal, it will make the nighty TV news. So yes, I would go with 4-5 feet and that would be pretty accurate, regardless of religious affiliation.
I’m 6’1″, so triple overhead plus a bit.
Australians don’t have different “standards”.
At that size, you don’t want to wander into the beach break below the point break. Anyone that has been in that situation knows that. Guess you haven’t been there Wiggs.
I am a fat middle aged air-conditioning man with pink batts in my lungs. What do you want from me? But it is interesting cos I reckon we would call triple over head more like 12ft. Not saying ours makes any sense. It’s just different.
Yeah, that could be a story all it’s own.
I surfed Pipe my first time in 79 and I told my buddy it was 10′. The guy that owned the house lit me up calling it 3 foot. LGR said he surfed 35′ Waimea… which calculates on a Hawaiian scale to 105 feet. Who the fuck knows?
A/C is a growth industry brother…. good on you. Climate gets warmer, Wiggs keeps making money. You offering any internships? I have a place to live in Melbs, maybe the island. I may be old but I hustle….
Good stuff Hip.
20ft cloudy will never be irrelevant!
Just lie, say it was you in the video and walk away
“I am dealing with is “conservative”… which really means she is incurious and sure of her opinions.”
Written by a liberal in an opinion piece where he’s incurious to the point of shunning.
Poor Otto, automatically drawn to opinions differing from his own so that he may shun them.
par for the course
Otto, you think it was you, LGR, or Bexy that Hippy had in mind precisely when he wrote those lines, knowing one of you would have to respond?
shhh, they are easy to lure….
No wonder the article sucked. Hippy’s head wasn’t in the game. Reminds me of Biden breaking his foot while playing with one of his Hitler dogs. Frail.
What are your thoughts on your orange master wearing Depends?
So there is hope for my story I sent to Dez last week?! Thank you editor’s note!
Just publish them yourself down here like I do. Negatron is my editor-in-chief.
That’s the usual, but with all the John Miskelly excrement smeared around the site recently, I thought everything was now getting posted!
I’m warming to it, I gotta admit.
Warm up to my book review of Barbarian Days I sent months ago while you’re at it.