But, "the surf doesn’t offer the perfection of Lemoore or the pop of Waco. And they’re only running at twenty-percent capacity for the general public, nowhere near the two-meter plus surf that was advertised in advance…"
You start the walk to The Wave from a kilometer away. There’s a shuttle bus that will take you, but it’s cold, you can see your breath, and you’d rather walk because it will warm you up.
The main building of The Wave is in front of you, but you see no signs of what you came here for until you check in. You show a pair of young people at the door the barcode of your ticket and they direct you a row of hard and soft surfboards inside, and a rack filled with thick wetsuits and booties on the deck.
That’s when you finally see it.
You can barely hear the hum of the engine that pumps out the surf via a network of small paddles. The machine lies at the end of a pier-like walkway. It creates a left on the left of it and a right on the right.
You choose which one you want to ride when you book online.
I’ve surfed at Waco and Lemoore and Bristol honestly feels the most like the ocean. You paddle next to the wall like you do at any pier or jetty wave and angle away from it down the line. It breaks in the same spot every single time.
The take off is easy. It’s not as buttery as the one at the Surf Ranch, but it gives you plenty of time to stumble to your feet. The first section is soft and slow, but it steepens, quickens and grows as it goes. It reminded of a gentle two-foot day at Snapper or New Pier in Durban.
After you kick out or fall, you paddle back to the end of the line.
Right now, they’re putting fifteen people per hour each “advanced” wave and they run twenty waves in the set. If you miss a wave, they’ll give you another one. They do a ninety-second break in between sets.
If you sprint paddle back to the line after a wave, you can sometimes get two in a set. I think I caught ten waves in my hour-long session which cost me $52.50 USD and included the use of a wetsuit and a new six-two thruster.
If I paddled faster between waves I probably could have caught five more. I started to see waves going unridden towards the end of the session.
It’s early days for The Wave, but a few issues have popped up.
The surf clearly doesn’t offer the perfection of Lemoore or the pop of Waco. The “Coach” for my session admitted that they’re only running at twenty-percent capacity at the moment for the general public, nowhere near the two-meter plus surf that was advertised in advance.
The Wave’s power got turned up a notch for a Red Bull crew a couple weeks ago but even those peelers looked head-high at best. The problem, according to The Wave’s Founder Nick Hounsfield, isn’t the technology, it’s the surfing level of some its customers.
“What were finding is quite of few people are struggling to be honest what their ability might be,” he said.
My session was marred by a handful of beginners who struggled to make the drop every time and didn’t get out of way of the surfer behind them quickly enough. It seems like a pretty easy solution to this would be to require surfers to prove they can handle a mellow setting before graduating to one that’s more advanced.
Hounsfield said they’re considering this approach, but are looking at a few other options as well.
He’s an interesting guy. He’s a youngish osteopath who had a dream five years ago to build a wave pool in his hometown. His initial investment was only £500. He somehow raised enough money to make it happen and has a vision of making the place a center for health, fitness and wellness.
With beginners on the inside included, he can get scores of people in the water every hour and the place was booked solid the day I was there despite and water and air temps that were only 11 degrees °C (52 °F).
If he can get the power of The Wave cranked up to around fifty-percent a few sessions a day for skilled surfers, and let everyone else have at it for the rest of the time, I think he’s got a business that could be profitable.
Even in its current state The Wave is still more fun and less crowded that eighty-percent of my surfs within an hour of my house in LA.
I’d probably go a couple times a month at if I lived near enough to one.
Speaking of which, when do those Palm Springs pools open again?
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Gather round, children, unbutton your raincoats, and listen to the greatest shark story ever told. @Jaws3
Witness: The Great White “was going like a rocket straight at us. I can see it so clearly, its mouth was open. I lifted my feet, grabbed the board…”
The greatest shark story ever told, starring surfing's original wonder boy…
Once upon a time, before the ubiquitous robot we cradle in our hands and stare at, head down, lips pursed as if studying the Dead Sea Scrolls while we cross roads and walk into doors, there was such a thing as The Story.
A shark, says Wayne, that first appeared like a submarine, silently coming out of the water head first and staring at him with its big black eyes.
Wayne said nothing to the guy, who had lost his own gun in a wipeout and who was clinging to the back of his board.
Two men on a red seven-six swallow-tail, and only one of ’em knows a Great White is slowly circling ’em.
“Every now and again, I can see the shark eight or nine feet away, swimming super slow, barely moving faster than us but in a circle. I’m looking down thinking, this is not good, this is really interesting.”
Wayne laughs.
“I figured it was more interested in John (the surfer he was rescuing) because he was tired. That’s why I put him at the back of the board. I figure, well, I’ll save you but I won’t die for you.”
Oh, Wayne puts you right there.
And, wait for the kicker at the end.
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Badger Daddy Shane and his divine wide-eyed son Jackie on the road.
Watch: Jackie Dorian, Badger Daddy and Pals in “Pretty People Oughta Hitch Up with Pretty People!”
Feel the divine nature of surfing fill your bones…
This relatively long-form cut of the child prodigy Jackson Dorian, who enjoyed his thirteenth birthday in September, was shot, mostly, and edited by his daddy, Shane Dorian, a former world number four.
In this video, forty-seven-year-old Shane toggles between surf footage and scenics as the little family travels through Australia, Indonesia, the Maldives and Mexico with a fitting exhibition and climax of wave jumping at the pool in Waco, Texas.
Given the age of the film’s protagonist, expect little in the way of sadistic gore and lurid sex, but do expect to feel a sudden, desperate urge to grab your surfboard and dive headlong into the ocean.
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Big Daddy Ho, sixty-two, the California-born son of a Waikiki Beach Boy. Surfing since he was three, bringing the electricity into his boy Mason and his lil girl Coco.
Watch: Big Daddy Ho and chillun in “Hush up your blasphemin’, Lucifer, and let me loose!”
Sixty-two-year-old former pro Mike, and his kids, Mason and Coco, sweep away the debris in any lineup…
Yeah, I know, y’seen plenty of Mason and Coco and Daddy Ho zipping through traffic on the North Shore.
Six days ago, it was at Pipe, watch here, today it’s at that locals-only wedge with the roll-in takeoff just north of Sunset and that no man, especially no white man, dare say its name.
(In stage whisper, Velzyland…)
I would recommend viewing of this four-minute short for several reasons. One, the crossovers between Mason and Mike, and which are recorded from the land and from Mason’s flotilla of GoPro POV units, the Mick Jagger-like pomp in Coco’s flashy surfing (did you know Coco is working with Jagger in New York?), Mason’s trigger finger popping hither and yon and the miracle of a man in his harvest years, sixty-two, still exhibiting the daily conditioned skills that long ago almost swept him into contention for a world title.
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Jon Pyzel and Matt Biolos by @theneedforshutterspeed/Step Bros
