Dirty Water: Beloved surf-hero Peter Mel on his bombshell wave at Mavericks and the reckless flirtation with Methamphetamine that nearly put him behind bars, “When you’re at your lowest it feels nothing can help you!”

The year of the Condor continues!

Methamphetamine is a terrific drug if used in correct proportion and for right reasons etc, a weekend-long sex party, to put the brakes on a kid with ADHD.

For Peter Mel, the big-wave surfer turned occasional WSL commentator from Santa Cruz, California, he put on the beast’s collar ’cause, well, that’s what y’do when you’re chasing rhinos in northern California.

Mel, who is fifty-three, no longer has the foaming jaws of a meth addict. Today he is the sort of man who loves his children with a passion, his parents with respect, his wife with generosity and his friends with loyalty.

He wears slightly too big flannel shirts and pants with stone washing applied at the factory.

On January 8 last year, Pete rode a thirty-foot tube at Mavs.

“Everyone on earth should see this ride,” said Kelly Slater.

In this interview by Ben Mondy, Pete talks about how he stuck his lance into that monster wave’s neck, how he was lucky to avoid jail during his meth years and the mysterious beauty of BeachGrit’s below-the-line commentators.