Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [62]
Parsons had no idea—no inkling such a wave existed. Flame wouldn’t tell him exactly where it was—only that it was out there. He showed Parsons all angles—including the shots that showed the buoy in the foreground. Was it 20 or 60 feet? Parsons thought it was probably rideable, but he wasn’t sure. What were the currents like? What lay on the bottom? How cold was it? What about big sharks? No one used Jet Skis yet—whether to tow into a wave or for rescue. If you were hurt, well, what could you even do?
Parsons emerged from the photo room a little pallid. Sharp gave him a wry grin. “I had mixed feelings,” Parsons says. “If I saw that wave today, I’d have been freaking out and ready to go because we have Jet Skis and all the safety gear. But back then all we had was our paddle surfboards. The thought of going out there—it was intimidating as hell.”
Of course, such a journey lay well over the horizon. After all, several years still lay ahead before Mike Parsons would be properly—and horribly—introduced to the waves of Maverick’s. Yet Parsons, Flame, and Sharp—and soon also Sean Collins—had found their siren song. Out in the middle of the ocean their leviathan awaited—a wave beyond their greatest ambitions and deepest fears.
Chapter 7:
AT
ARM”S
LENGTH
The modern big wave surfer must realize that he wasn”t born with an 18-foot umbilical tethering him to a lithe, composite gun, and with a detailed lineup chart and printout of swell predictions in hand… Today”s hyper equipped surfer is the end result of thousands of years of evolution.
—Dave Parmenter, Surfer magazine, August 1999
Eventually, the waves at the Cortes Bank would become an earth-shattering revelation, at least for one particular and rarified surfing subset. Yet the vast majority of surfers blanch at the very idea of seeking out such monstrosities, and truly big waves don’t impact their day-to-day surfing lives one iota. That doesn’t mean they aren’t fascinated, but only from the beach. Most never angle for a spot in those lineups.
One imagines that Ahab must have been similarly lonely, for only a very few of the most fiendishly obsessed captains would have sympathized with and shared his lust for the biggest, most dangerous whale of all. To fully appreciate the impact and lure of Cortes Bank, it helps to understand something of the world of big wave surfing and the treacherous reef breaks that form the sport’s crucibles—those places where surfers develop the tools and techniques, and the nerve, they need to approach a place like the Cortes Bank when it is at its height, breaching in almighty, storm-driven rage. Even big wave surfers sometimes forget where they came from, that they “stand on the shoulders of giants,” to quote Surfer magazine’s brilliant and iconoclastic scribe Dave Parmenter. Towsurfing became the big wave surfer’s rocket-launched, explosive-tipped harpoon. This bastard mechanized spawn of surfing, waterskiing, and motocross was an evolutionary response to the desire for bigger and bigger waves. When towsurfing arrived, it shook surfing to its core, yet it followed and was made possible only by generations of paddle surfers who paved the way. Before anyone could stand on the shoulder of a giant atop the mile-high pinnacle of the Cortes Bank, scores would suffer, and in some cases die, running the gauntlet on waves whose histories are woven between Hawaii and the North American mainland like a braided necklace of kelp and hibiscus.
Makaha
On a quiet summer morning, Makaha Beach Park seems about as idyllic a place as you might find in all of Hawaii. It’s a perfect crescent moon of blond sand and warm, sapphire ocean, hemmed in by a dragon spine of ridgeline that defines the northern boundary of Oahu’s arid Waianae Valley. A small scrum of local kids bob atop surf and boogie boards, circling like vultures over the dying remains of a Southern Hemisphere swell. Beneath a small grove of broad-leafed kamani trees, a group of old men