Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [102]
“It’s pretty crumpled down now,” he says. “And there are just a couple of portions where you can get in. When you do get in, it’s still pretty enclosed. But there are more and more holes in it—some blow through all the way inside now. You’re diving in rebar all over, and you gotta pay attention to where you’re going so you don’t get lost. When you’re inside it’s calm, but coming in and going out can be rough. It’s scary. I can’t believe guys surf out there.”
As far as anyone—even John Walla and Evan Slater—knew, only the towsurfing teams would actually be riding waves: Skindog and Peter Mel on one ski, and Brad Gerlach and Mike Parsons on another. As the watercraft pulled away from the Pacific Quest, deckhand Mike Towle’s words resonated. “Remember, everything’s big about the Bank,” he said. “And if someone needs help, keep in mind that it’s a forty-five-minute chopper ride out—and the Coast Guard won’t even bother if you’re already dead.” As if on cue, Flame, Sharp, and Natali appeared on the horizon in their plane. The weather was perfect, the view stupendous. At sea level, waves can appear somewhat flat and two-dimensional. From a thousand feet up, you could see the swells slowing and bending around the Bishop Rock, their three-dimensional spines literally tracing the contours of the ancient shoreline. Endlessly complex physics caused each to shift and warp in its own unique, almost hypnotic pattern. A mile to the north, Evan Slater’s “Himalayan” wave indeed looked like a giant volcano. It was, said Sharp, “utterly fascinating.”
Randy Laine had motored to a position inside of and directly in front of the breaking waves with his massive four-passenger Yamaha. Directly behind him sat Aaron Chang cradling a Canon with a big 300mm auto-focus lens. Laine was the first person to ever tow a human on a surfboard behind a Jet Ski. He had skied nearly every big wave on Earth, from Todos to Maverick’s to Jaws and Outside Log Cabins—and he was spooked.
Gerlach and Mel were to grab their respective ropes and surf first. There seemed two spots along the reef where you could slingshot a Surfer onto a wave. The teams approached gingerly, opting to get a feel for the seemingly safer inside sections before heading farther out. From a distance, everyone had marveled at how the waves seemed to topple in slow motion. Up close, the impression was completely reversed. Mel thought the wave moved two notches faster than anything he had ever seen.
Today, no one seems to remember who rode the first wave, but the consensus is that it was Peter Mel. Skindog picked a fairly small wave—what he later called 15 to 18 feet, in Surfer terms, but which anyone else would call 20 to 25 feet, trough to crest. He chased it down from behind and expertly piloted Pete Mel a good position.
The glider pilot let go of his tow plane. Mel made a few short S-turns to get a feel for his 7-foot 2-inch JC Hawaii. It was a little stiff, but felt gooood. The wave let Mel just kiss its lip, then Mel arced a hard angle to his left and plunged downward. At the bottom, he laid every ounce of his two hundred pounds into a solid bottom turn and rocketed back up the face. He carved the wave like a Super G skier.
Next, Mike Parsons slung Gerlach onto an A-frame-shaped peak. Gerlach faded left, turning his board back toward the descending white water to tap into the precise spot where he might harness the wave’s maximum energy, and then at the last instant, he laid a gauging right-hand slash across the wave’s face. Gerlach was a technician; he liked nothing better than to lay his board down on a rail and draw out a turn as long and hard as he possibly could. Yet he had never in his life felt anything like the power of these waves—had never drawn out a turn so long and hard. It was like snowboarding down the steepest, deepest powder run on the planet while the mountain tried to eat you.
For the moment, the surfers maintained their roles. Parsons and Skindog towed Gerlach and Mel for maybe a half an hour. Bravery increased, and before