Ghost Wave - Chris Dixon [93]
Gerlach was the offspring of a stuntman and a stuntwoman, so his future was pretty much foregone. A high-sensation seeker is simply what he is. It’s part of every decision that’s made through their whole life, for better or worse. “You know, I was one of the best guys on the World Tour,” he says, eerily echoing his dad. “Sometimes I think, I could have just stuck with it and been financially secure. But I couldn’t. I just can’t be bored.
“Surfing these huge waves—I never thought it was something I would do. I’ve really had to rely on Mike telling me, ‘You’re good enough to do this.’ I am? Really? I can’t even believe I’m here right now. I’m picturing the enemy. I’ve had to conquer so much fear. I’ve had some of the most amazing days of my life conquering fear—seeking sensations.”
“I think about my motivations,” Parsons says. “God, it’s funny sometimes. I went and did the highest bungie jump in the world in South America. I went with Taylor Knox, Kelly Slater, and one of Kelly’s other friends. The funny thing was that me and Kelly were probably the most reserved—the most calculated. Taylor, he just went to the edge and jumped. I mean, I don’t fit the profile of the guy who will go and skydive—I’m actually pretty conservative. I’m actually terrified of certain things. I drive slow, I’m always worried when I’m on the road. I fly airplanes now—and I’m super by the book. You’d think I’d be the guy barreling in the clouds, but I’m not. I triple-check the weather. I’m super calculated.”
In a way, Parsons might claim Starbuck, the whaler in Moby Dick, as a cousin. As Melville wrote:
“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
“Aye, aye,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery. But we shall ere long see what that word ‘careful’ precisely means when used by a man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.”
Implicit in Parsons’s world of calculated risk is the idea that somehow because he looks before he leaps off the highest bungie jump in the world, triple-checks the weather, and flies by the book, that he is less of a high-sensation seeker, or risk taker, than his friends. He’s not. Flying by the book doesn’t mitigate the fact that if he loses an engine above the hills of San Clemente, he’s dead. And why does he fly, anyway? It’s so he can surf big, empty waves along Baja’s loneliest, most dangerous stretches of coastline—far, far from any medical attention. Parsons might be careful. He might be calculating. But like Starbuck, he deliberately chose brave yet terrified crewmen like Chris Mauro and eventually Brad Gerlach to go with him, and he still hunted the whale.
If Mike Parsons is an addicted big wave hunter, he and Starbuck share another trait in their earnest and general sobriety. Parsons always managed to turn his daredevil addiction into the hunt—something physical, an activity that provides a recognizable living, even if it’s not as socially and commercially productive as, say, harpooning whales. For Peter Mel, on the other hand, the big wave hunt was not enough. This was something I learned of on February 14, 2008, while I was perched up on Rob Brown’s boat watching Greg and Rusty Long, Skindog, Evan Slater, and Pete Mel drop bombs at Maverick’s. Mel went ass over elbows on a huge wave. He paddled over to the boat. He was done. Rob Brown offered him a painkiller.
“No, thanks,” Mel replied.
“How ‘bout a beer?”
“Nope. Don’t take anything anymore.”
“How come?”
“Because I was a fucking drug addict.”
Pete Mel comes from a line of watermen. His grandfather Peter was a fisherman. His dad, John, started shaping surfboards in the South Bay of Los Angeles