June 19, 2009 Friday

The Big Drop, edited by John Long

John Long’s The Big Drop (copyright 1999) a collection of 32 classic stories about big wave riding is a fantastic read and highly recommended for surfers of all ages. The book has been around for ten years yet I never heard of it. In the middle of the shelf of Border’s good inventory of books on surfing sat one copy. It had six stories by Bruce Jenkins, yes, the noted sports columnist of the 3 Dot Lounge for the San Francisco Chronicle. Jenkins is a surfer, lives in Montara, is a contributing editor to Surfer magazine and has written numerous articles and books on surfing. A few years ago I purchased and read his excellent book, North Shore Chronicles. Other renown contributors are surf journalists Ben Marcus (former editor of Surfer), Matt Warshaw (another former editor of Surfer and author of the Encyclopedia of Surfing), and Phil Jarrett (author of Mr. Sunset, the Jeff Hakman Story) and famous surfers, Gerry Lopez, Greg Noll, Mark Foo, Brock Little, Fred Van Dyke, Ken “Skindog” Collins, Buzzy Kerbox and Peter Cole. With all these big surfing names assembled in one book, how could I go wrong? Despite being a tight SOB, I splurged and bought it.

Who is John Long? I never heard of him before. Long is an extreme rock climber and author on the sport. His instructional Advanced Rock Climbing has sold over a million copies, and his award winning short stories are known for taut action and psychological intensity. He grew up in Southern California and loved the surf culture, often paying his buck to watch the surf films shown at local high schools. On a movie assignment on Oahu, a massive swell hit Waimea. He witnessed the giant waves and heard the exploring carpet-bombing sound of the enormous breakers. He watched four guys trying to paddle out, three made it out and one didn’t. The one went over the falls and his board explored into three pieces. Thinking the day was over for this young warrior, Long was amazed that this determined surfer grabbed another board, paddled out and caught several huge waves. That did it for him; big wave riders are a breed apart. He began a quest to assemble the ultimate stories on big wave surfing, a true adventure sport. Small wave riding doesn’t count. Adventure sports have one overriding constant: a break in form or an error in judgment can kill you. He apologizes for omissions but feels these stories are the ones that had to be told.

“Big Wave Surfing Timeline,” by Ben Marcus, the last article in the book, lists the famous milestones and events in big wave surfing. This collection covers several of them.

“Death of Dickie Cross,” as told by Woody Brown to Bruce Jenkins, December 22, 1943 gives an eyewitness account of the first surfing death at Waimea Bay. Woody Brown and Dickie Cross got caught outside on a monstrous day at Sunset Beach. Brown was a pioneer of Hawaiian surfing, inventor of the catamaran, a well-known fixture at Waikiki and was featured in the movie Surf for Life. A clean-up wave appeared on the horizon, they barely scratched over it and decided to get out of there. They paddled several miles to Waimea thinking the deeper bay would present a better opportunity to paddle in. A huge set came through the Bay and Dickie lost his board. Brown was paddling in to get him and Dickie was swimming out when another huge set arrived. Woody turned and paddled out trying to save their only board. He wasn’t going to make it, he let the board go, dove for the bottom and when he surfaced he never saw Dickie again. Dickie’s death cast Waimea as unsurfable for 15 years to until 1957 when Greg Noll and crew successfully challenged the Bay.

“Outside Pipeline 1964,” by Greg Noll and Andrea Gabbard, November 1964, describes the epic day depicted in the above photo. As Greg puts it, “What many people don’t realize is that the wave in the picture is just the shorebreak. Horrendous as that shorebreak looked, it was small change compared to the monsters breaking nearly a mile beyond.” Greg and friend Mike Stang went out and it took them one hour to get beyond the shorebreak. Greg spent seven hours in the water and caught one wave, a 25-foot bomber that grew in size as he sailed down it. He rode it all the way to the inside break and charged on instead of pulling out. The speed was so great he was skipping down the face in 15-foot jumps until the speed and wind blew him off the board, ending in a horrible wipeout near the shore.

“The Last Wave,” by Greg Noll and Andrea Gabbard, December 4, 1969, describes the once in a century 1969 swell and Greg Noll’s riding the largest wave ever paddled into. The epic swell closed out all the breaks on the north shore, so Greg drove around Kaena Point to Makaha on the west side of Oahu where the waves are smaller. He paddled into a monster wave, dropped down a face that could have held two eighteen wheelers stacked on top of each other, then into a cavernous green room where there was no escape. Tons of white water collapsed on him, pushed him under and trashed him around, but soon released him. Now he had the difficult task of swimming in. As he was swimming parallel to the beach to avoid the rocks he could see his good friend Buffalo Keaulana sitting on shore in his lifeguard truck. Greg finally flopped on the beach. Buffalo shoved a beer into his face and said, “Good thing you make ‘em Brudda. Cause no way I was commin’ in after you. I was jus goin’ wave goodbye and say Aloooha.”

“Man Imitates Abalone,” by Jeff Clark as told to Lawrence Beck, winter 1992 describes Jeff’s ordeal of being stranded on top of Maverick’s Ship Rock. On the inside of Mavericks lies an outcropping of three huge rocks, the biggest one known as Ship Rock. Normal rides move the surfer down the line away from these rocks. But in this case, the wave doubled up early in the drop and dumped Jeff in front of them. The strong current and huge waves pushed Jeff onto Ship Rock. He scrambled to the far side, made like an abalone and clung onto the crevices of the rock while ten waves pounded over the top of him. Friends came to his rescue but they could not get to him. Another friend stood at the base of the cliff and shouted to Jeff when the waves were coming. Finally the friend yelled to Jeff to swim for it, which he did and made it to safe water. Jeff refers to this ordeal as “just another day at the office.”

“The Apprenticeship of Jay Moriarty,” by Jason Smith, December 21, 1994 begins with 16-year-old Jay Moriarty describing his famous wipeout that put him on the cover of Surfer and into national notoriety. Jay did an ass first free-fall down the face of a 25-foot wave that drove him to the bottom and bounced him off the reef. He wasn’t just some inexperience kid paddling out there for the first time. Under the tutorage of Rick “Frosty” Hesson, Jay had prepared for Mavericks for three years. At age thirteen Jay knew he wanted to ride big waves so he began hanging around Frosty and the older Santa Cruz big wave riders. After some reluctance 45-year-old Frosty agreed to teach Jay how to ride the big ones. Frosty’s approach with Jay was a comprehensive study of surfing. With Jay feeling like the Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi (Frosty) assigned him an essay to get his thinking processes down. During his tutorage, Jay wrote over 55 essays while excelling in the physical exercises of distance paddling, surfing, swimming and biking. During extreme low tides, they would study the rock reef at Mavericks and draw diagrams of it. Jay’s graduation came in April 1994 on a late-in-season Mavericks 15 to 18-foot day. Jay left Frosty in his wake in the paddle out, went straight to the peak and connected on a clean long wall. He was ready.

“Death of a Legend,” by Matt Warshaw, December 23, 1994 gives an in-depth account of the drowning of big waver rider Mark Foo at Mavericks. It was Mark’s first time out at the northern California break, he took off on a medium size wave, half way down the face pitched forward and splashed into the water. There was nothing special about this wave. Everyone’s attention immediately turned to the next wave, a bigger one where Block Little and Mike Parsons were taking off and both were buried in white water and were soon being swept into Sail Rock. No one noticed that Foo didn’t surface. Ken Bradshaw and Mark Foo had flown all night from Hawaii, landed in San Francisco at 5:30 am, connected with friend Doc Renneker at Ocean Beach and arrived at Mavericks at 9:30 am. Cold water, warm day, slight offshore breeze and all the Mavericks regulars, boats and photographers were there. The waves were average thus a mystery revolves around how Mark actually died. Warshaw sums it up this way: Foo drowned, Parson nearly died and Little had what he called a “heavy experience” all from a single set of waves. Along with Pipeline Mavericks is one of the most deadly big wave spots in the world.

“Laird Hamilton,” by Bruce Jenkins fills in the growing up years of this surfing legend from the incredible story of two-year-old Laird choosing big time North Shore surfer Billy Hamilton as his father, to his hanging around with big wave riders Jose Angel and Butch Van Artsdalen to his pioneering of tow-in surfing at Jaws off Maui. Laird was an energetic holy terror of a little kid. When surfers lost their boards at Pipeline, Laird would grab them and bury them in the sand for a joke. He lit off firecrackers under the decks of parties and threw cans filled with sand at passing surfers. In school Laird was the only hoale (white kid) and had to fight his way to respect. On his first day of school in the 11th grade, Laird got into a fight and decided then that school was not for him. He dropped out, learned the trades becoming an expert craftsman and surfed. Laird has overcome his raging side and has become a perfect gentleman. On a tour of Laird’s old haunts on Kauai, Billy Hamilton showed Jenkins the hills, forests, moss covered rocks, cliffs and trails of Laird’s playground where he ran around full tilt barefooted for hours everyday. They encountered Bobo Ham Young, long time friend of Billy and Laird’s. Per Bobo, his grandfather practically raised Laird. He was always with them at their family gatherings. Laird may be white but inside he is Hawaiian, pure Aloha spirit. He always stops the car to come over and greet the old ones of the family.

Laird’s story reads like an ancient Greek myth. Laird’s mother commented that her brief encounter with Laird’s father was just to have Laird, and she married Billy because Laird had chosen him. Hercules, Achilles, Jason and Laird Hamilton could all be part of the same legend.

The Big Drop, edited by John Long, gets the Lorenzo Five Star rating, so check it out.