Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [110]
Parsons’s 2001 wave as seen from the air by Bill Sharp, Vince Natali, and Larry “Flame” Moore. Photo: Larry “Flame” Moore.
“For me, it easily goes down as: Is this a dream?” says Skindog. “Why me? How come I’m so lucky? Some of those waves, in my head I wonder, did that really happen? I used to think that 30 foot [or what is actually 50 feet] was as big as it gets. You know, ‘cause I believe Maverick’s can get as big as the ocean will throw. But just seeing what Cortes did with the swell we got. It’s on a higher voltage. It’s on steroids. But, you know, there’s also the weather factor: Is it gonna be clean? We went out and scored an oasis. We might never get it like that again.”
Gerlach’s eyes glaze over, lost in the recollection. “Whew,” he says. “I wish I was there right now. I think about it so much. I wish I was there.”
“I felt weightless,” says Parsons. “I told Brad, that was it. I mean, I got the ride of my life. It just felt like that moment, that day, on that wave…I kicked out and went, That’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life.”
Parsons had his Greg Noll moment, but rather than being sated, he hungered for more.
A couple of months later, at the first annual Swell/Surfline Big Wave Awards, photos of the winter season’s biggest ridden waves were evaluated by a slate of judges—Bill Sharp, Sean Collins, Sam George, Evan Slater, Brock Little, Flippy Hoffman, Mickey Muñoz, and photo editors Les Walker and Flame. In this raucous, baptismal incarnation of the XXL contest, Parsons’s 66-foot, $60,000 wave would defeat entries by Peter Mel, Darryl “Flea” Virostko, Noah Johnson, Jay Moriarity, and Laird Hamilton (the first and only time Laird would enter the contest). Declaring one wave “officially” the biggest on Earth is always a perilous business, especially when you have to take into account all the proud slayers of Jaws mammoths, Maverick’s mackers, and blurry Outer Log Cabins behemoths. Nonetheless, the overlords at Guinness felt sufficiently awed to declare Mike’s wave a world record.
When the dust had settled, Sharp, Flame, Collins, and Parsons took a hard look at the swell specifics from the day at Cortes. The numbers were fairly staggering. A 15- to 18-foot groundswell had produced a wave 66-feet high on the face. But bigger swells hit the Cortes Bank. Much bigger. On the right swell, the unthinkable was truly possible.
The quest for the 100-foot wave had begun.
Chapter 10:
MUTINY
ON THE
BOUNTY
“Men, this gold is mine, for I earned it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be killed, this gold is that man’s; and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away now!”
—Ahab, from Herman Melvilles Moby-Dick, 1851
It was a shot heard round the world.
On January 22, 2001, the venerable Los Angeles Times plunked down before 1.5 million readers with news of a remarkable maritime occurrence just one hundred miles offshore. On the front page, adjacent to a story about George W. Bush’s first day as president, read the headline: “Surfers Catch Monster Waves Off California.” The news was scarcely to be believed. A small team of daredevils had challenged the biggest waves ever encountered in the history of their sport in a location all but unimaginable.