Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [89]
Parsons will readily admit it. Up until the death of Mark Foo, he didn’t really think about dying in big waves. Didn’t admit that it could happen to him. It wasn’t really until he actually saw Foo lying in his open casket that the reality of what had happened crashed down around him. “That I was there firsthand to have that experience. I was right down there underwater with him in my arms,” he says. “Just this realization, you can just…drown. Everything was running through my head for weeks on end. I still have crazy dreams today, when I think back. What could I have done differently? How did that happen?”
Afterward, Parsons paddled out with Ken Bradshaw at 6-foot Sunset Beach—the kind of conditions he would have previously laughed off—and was utterly terrified. He wondered if he’d ever manage to muster the nerve to paddle out at Todos or Maverick’s again.
Thinking back today, he furrows his brow and takes a deep breath. “You know, I suppose in the back of my mind, I guess I always knew something like that could happen. But going through it so vividly. Riding the wave behind Foo and bumping into him underwater. All that. It was as hard as you could ever lay it on. I guess that sounds kind of weird. I mean it’s nothing—it’s nothing compared to the fact that he drowned. I mean, Mark lost his life, so who cares what happened to me. But at the same time, it was so real. You can read about a guy freezing to death on Mount Everest and you could say, ‘Wow, that’s so heavy. I can’t believe people could walk by this guy, and he’s freezing to death in a little cave.’ But if you’re the guy who sits down next to him and almost freezes to death yourself, it’s obviously a lot different. What if those two waves took out three people instead? Because it was that close.”
After countless hours of conversation with his dad and friends about the loss and the fear, Parsons came to understand that even if he had realized that he was bumping against Foo underwater, he could have done little to save him. There were no rescue crews out on Jet Skis, and even if Parsons had somehow managed to paddle back and alert everyone else, Foo would have already been down for too long.
For a year or so, Parsons even thought about giving up big waves. “Ian Cairns—he had a horrendous wipeout at the Smirnoff event at Waimea years ago. Injured his neck forever in that one wipeout. He was one of the few guys who admitted, ‘That changed my perspective and my entire life. I never wanted to drown. I’m not going to risk my life like that again.’”
Then, on December 23, 1995, a year to the day after Mark Foo died in California, a talented Californian named Donnie Solomon drowned in huge surf at Waimea Bay. It was the first time a Surfer of repute had died at Waimea since Dickie Cross’s disappearance in 1943. Then on February 13, 1997, well-liked North Shore big wave Surfer Todd Chesser got caught inside a massive wave and drowned at an offshore spot on Oahu called Outside Alligators.
Bill Sharp said it was as though a fifty-year run in the casino had suddenly turned up three sets of snake eyes. If Mark Foo, Donnie Solomon, and Todd Chesser could drown, any big wave Surfer could check out at any time. The entire sport went through a mortality gut check.
But Parsons didn’t quit. Unlike Ian Cairns, the very real possibility of dying wasn’t enough to scare him off, and unlike Greg Noll, he hadn’t yet found a wave that pulled the monkey off his back. However, he promised himself that he would do things differently: There would be no more just leaping off a boat and paddling out into the unknown without studying a spot. Where were guys lining up? What were the currents? What were the escape routes? What were his lifesaving backups? If he had none, he might actually be content not to surf. At least that’s what he convinced himself.
In the end, despite their