by John Long
One of the new mainlanders was a lanky, sad-eyed boardmaker from La Jolla named Pat Curren. For his second visit to the North Shore, Curren rented a three-bedroom beachfront house at Sunset for himself and nine other San Diego-area surfers, removed all the furniture, demolished the partition walls in the front of the house, installed horizontal floor-to-ceiling surfboard racks along one side, and built a long trestle down the middle of the room. Curren had a passing interest in Norse legend, and he called the new digs Mead Hall. Normally the quietest and most reserved of the California surfers, Pat Curren was so inspired by the renovation that he'd preside at mealtime wearing a thriftshop Viking helmet, pound his fist on the tabletop, raise one foaming beaker of mead after the other, and exhort his friends to do the same in a broken Old English-surfer dialect.
Along with Greg Noll, Curren became one of the acknowledged leaders of the North Shore pioneering effort. Back in California, while most of the other mainland big wave riders were attending college, Curren worked as a draftsman and a carpenter and did some underwater repairs on the Santa Barbara Channel oil platforms; he had an air of offhand but absolute mechanical competence. Curren's high rank on the North Shore had a lot to do with the specialized big wave boards he made-sleek, perfectly crafted 12-foot balsa pintails, described by one surfer as "a cross between a work of art and a weapon."
[George] Downing and [Joe] Quigg invented the finned big wave surfboard, but Curren improved on the design with subtle but crucial adjustments to the rocker curve and bottom contours. Curren was also the slouching, near-mute apotheosis of surf cool: draining an afternoon beer, flicking a cigarette butt to the side, then taking down Malibu golden boy Tommy Zahn in a paddle race; flying to Hawaii one season with no luggage save a ten-pound sack of flour for making tortillas; sailing the 3,000-mile Great Circle route from Honolulu to Los Angeles on a 64-foot cutter and posing for a photo en route, bearded and watch-capped, a huge Havana cigar jutting from a corner of his mouth, left hand on the wheel, right hand holding a shot glass of creme de menthe.
Cooler than all these images put together, Curren would invariably pick off and ride the biggest, thickest, meanest wave of the day. With Zenlike patience he'd sit on his board at least 10 yards beyond anybody else, then wait an hour, two hours, three hours if necessary, for the grand slam set wave. The ride itself was stripped down and fluid, as Curren went into a deep crouch, spread his arms like wings, and led with chest and long chin; tearing across a huge wave face, in circumstances where other riders dropped automatically into a survival stance, Curren often looked like an Art Deco hood ornament.
"And he didn't give a shit if anyone saw it or not," fellow big wave charger Peter Cole said. "The rest of us would run around, chasing photographers, 'Did you get the shot? Huh? Did you?' While Pat would just grab the wave of the day, walk up the beach, and vanish."
-From The History of Surfing, by Matt Warshaw
It was called the Cape of Good Hope, some kind of cruel joke when you consider that seventeenth-century Dutch mariners applied the moniker to the storm-battered, monster wave-lashed southern tip of the African continent. But over the past decade a new breed of ocean explorer has flocked to the Cape Town region with the hope of tackling the very same storm surf that sunk fleets of Dutch Indiamen. More specifically, to ride a scary, inhospitable spot known as Dungeons, which breaks big and often enough to make devotees out of Californians like Rusty Long, who provided this battlefield account.
Shark Alley is so-named because directly in from the farthest west section of the Dungeons reef is a seat island with thousands of blubbery snacks frolicking at all times. The place is a drivethrough for the lurkies. Local fishermen think we're nuts for surfing out there.
The pioneers of Dungeons used to paddle across that channel to get out and, in some instances, swim back in because of broken leashes. Pierre De Villes is the most notorious pioneer and respected big wave surfer of the area. He owns a surf and art joint called the Dream Shop. I met him there a day after he returned from a dive trip in the Natal area. "A hell trip," he called it. The visibility was subpar, and a bestial grouper snagged his catch and took him for a ride, nearly drowning him. He likes diving during sardine runs when the food chain is in full effect-that's how he gets his adrenaline fill. "You ever come across sharks out there?" I questioned. "Are you fucking kidding me? This ocean is full of 'em! They usually give you a once-over, but sometimes a pissed one will grind your catch." That's the breed it took to initially surf out there without boat or safety crew. Try and imagine that.
It seems the world's most majestic waves are backed by equally majestic landscapes. Dungeons is no exception. A densely forested valley surrounded by mountains with only one winding road through leads to the bay, with massive homes interspersed throughout. The place is the Beverly Hills of Cape Town. Red Bull [a company sponsor of big wave riders] didn't mess around with accommodations either. We were set up on the valley floor on a two-acre property with a big house and some small cottages with a couple of pools and spas.
It was a bit of an animal house commune, but what else is expected when a handful of frothing, big wave hellmen live in such close quarters? Twiggy and Antman lived together in a cottage. Twiggy is from Durban, a jack of many trades. He works for a few months a year as a Billabong rep in the Natal region. He's one of the best kiteboarders in the world, an expert tube rider, and a smooth romancer of women.
Antman Patterson, from Yallingup, West Oz, is a legend. He'll ride any wave, take any bet, and cook up a gourmet meal to finish the day. He turned his 2,000-rand contest appearance money into 20,000, the equivalent of $2,000, which would last months there. We were all in awe, but he coolly explained it as "standard procedure; woulda had way more, too, but I was handing off all the small chips to an old boy hanging around."
Also at the pad were Rudy Palmboom, a country legend from Durban; Jon Whittle, who in his younger days partied harder than anybody but now has no fear "because the Lord is watching over me"; Grant Washburn, the animated giant from Mavericks; and the godfather, Gary Linden, who directs the event and is the only fiftythree-year-old I know still paddling into 20-footers.
Dungeons helps establish Capetown as the home of seriously heavy waves.
PHOTO © NIC BOTHMA
The entire month was an incessant run of big waves. Unfortunately, most swells arrived with the brutal fronts that created them, resulting in uncouth conditions. Aside from one ultraclean 15-foot day that was too inconsistent to hold the contest (a day Jamie Sterling smacked his head on his board for a concussion), most sessions were amid a mess of wind and chunky swell. Even on its prettiest day, the wave is unpredictable, and on its uglier days, well, nightmarish. The waves pop up sporadically along a 200-yard stretch of reef. The outside and inside sections are the gnarliest. The top section is a folding slab impossible to paddle into-it honestly mimics reverse Teahupoo. When somebody eventually tows into it, heroic tubes will manifest. The bottom section is another shallow shelf that contorts the waves into boxy, boily mutants. In between these sections is where the proper waves break, which shift drastically and show a different form for every wave. You never really know what will unfold.
On one of the big messy days, Gary made the wise decision to not run the event, but a handful of crew was amped for a surf anyhow. I was with Sterles as we watched. I asked him, "If Waimea was this out of hand, would you go out?" "No way!" he replied. "What about Todos?" "Not a chance!" But we couldn't be the princesses left on the boat.
Greg Long got out a bit before me, and I paddled up to him for a synopsis. "It's fucking sketchy; I'm catching one and getting out of here," he hollered.
My session went like this. A macker caught me inside, and my leash was pulled from the strings and washed into Shark Alley. The safety ski grabbed me, we fetched my board, and I reattached and paddled back out. Anticipation time was about half an hour until a macker swung right to me. I stroked in, and the wave jumped simultaneously. I looked straight down, my boa
rd clinging vertically to the face, realizing I'd put myself into "a predicament." A chop caught the nose of my board at the top and swallowed it, sending me cartwheeling forward onto the pitching face. I flew backward with an upside-down look at Sentinel Cliff, thinking for an instant, Wow, neat view. There was a tranquil moment, then a long "Ohhhhh, Shiiit!" then a vicious explosion that compressed my head, shooting yellow and white fireworks through visual darkness.
Luckily, the hold-down wasn't too long, maybe twelve seconds, but the impact was the most brutal I've experienced. I surfaced and couldn't judge up from down, in from out. My head was spinning like it does when you jump in bed after a night of boozing and stare at the ceiling. My board was, amazingly, still in one piece. Sterles wiped out on the wave after mine just up the reef and ended up right by me. He realized I was dazed and headed me to the channel. Another wave on the last section nailed us and pushed us into deep-water safety. My neck tightened immediately, and my head spun circles for a good fifteen minutes. I was fortunate to come out with just a concussion and a weeklong stiff neck. That's exactly where flexibility comes into play. After that, no more out-of-control days for me.
Going surfing Down Under used to be easy and mostly fun: the casual stroll through Norfolk pines to the jump-off spot at Queensland's Burleigh Heads; cruising along backcountry roads on the way to Angourie's fabulous point break; the short jog across the sand from the parking lot to the tubes of Sydney's North Narrabeen. Key phrase: used to be. Once a new generation offull-throttled Aussie surfers looked up from their sunny beaches to the outer realms of their Pacific and Indian Ocean shores, the monster wave discoveries came fast and furious. Mostly furious, as revealed by this expedition account in which an intrepid team of watermen confront a true Tasmanian devil.
Saturday, Day 1. The Gathering
The offshore wind had been picking up since dawn. The breeze was light enough in the beginning; the early arrivals reveled in some morning glories before it turned punishing, forcing us back to the beach. We didn't know what punishment was.
Jamie Mitchell and Billy Watson had just accomplished a mammoth driving task, towing their ski for twenty-four hours from the Gold Coast. I had picked up Bra Boy Richie "Vass" Vaculik and his mate, John "Bones" Dwyer, from Bronte, in Adelaide, the night before. This was Bones's first real trip away from Sydney chasing bigger waves than he was used to, something of which Bungy, his friend from home, consummated when he sent a text to Bones en route exclaiming:
"Here are the three scenarios: Bones overestimates his ability and gets hammered by massive waves; Bones dies. Bones faces his worst fear in the cold southern Australian waters when he meets an 18-foot great white shark, and after a very brief struggle, Bones dies. Bones is exposed as the coward he is when he refuses to leave the boat the entire trip; Bones lives (although sadly, he later takes his own life when he realizes he's been exposed as a soft cock)."
With a rumpus cackle from Vass and myself and a worried look on Bones's face, we cruised through the night, finding ourselves at base camp at 1:00 a.m. Five hours later we are in the water for day 1 of the Search for the Bosenquet Bombie.
Shipsterns guardians Marti Paradisis and James HollmerCross flew in later, along with Mark "the Shadow" Visser. We all regrouped at the dock to meet up with legendary fisho and surfer Jeff Schmucker, his seventeen-year-old son, Josiah, and Dave from Oregon, Jeff's long-time surfing buddy, the two having first met years before at some exotic break overseas.
After loading the deck of the 22-meter prawn trawler with a seemingly endless supply of food, equipment, and Coopers, we transferred down to our bunks set up in the fish freezer room. It resembled a jail with all the caged enclosures but was clean as a whistle and smelled nothing of fish despite having thousands of tons of prawns dumped there over the last few years.
At 5:00 p.m. the wind backed down, and we decided to give it a shot. We blasted across the tricky bar and headed 30 miles out to an island that offered some protection from the weather should it turn heavy.
One thing my science teacher always told me, and one thing that has bitten me on the butt more times than I can poke a stick at, is never assume. Within an hour of setting sail, the winds kicked back up: 25-30-35-40-45-50 knots. Storm-force gusts beat down as darkness fell. We were towing three skis, had another on deck, plus the aluminum dinghy. It didn't take long before the violent rocking started striking the team. Billy was the first to go puking, with everyone else feeling the effects in some form.
Our typical four-hour trip would obviously take much longer. I took watch of the towed skis, less for the machines and more because continued sitting meant upchucking for sure. Equally sickening was watching our skis getting smashed by swell and storm. They looked like corks thrashing around. I shudder to think what the captain saw as the trawler smashed through raging seas, but I didn't dare claw into the stale wheelhouse. Instead, I braced against a bulkhead for six hours, staring into the maelstrom. Waves crashed over the bow, hosing three levels of the boat, cascading over to the stern just in front of me. Several times I saw my ski get picked up and dropped on top of the others, but there was simply nothing we could do. We couldn't stop, couldn't turn-just had to punch on. After three or four hours of this madness, had the tow ropes snapped, which seemed likely, I wouldn't have minded. I was past the point of caring.
Jamie Mitchell's take on the moment: We were about four hours into the trip, and I remember going up into the captain's quarters and checking out the conditions, and it was wild. It reminded me of The Perfect Storm. Then I told the cap that he must see conditions like this all the time, hey? He just looked at me and said, "Nah, mate, we stay at home when it's like this," and then just focused on punching through the swells.
At around 11:00 p.m. we pulled into somewhat calmer waters, but the wind and ocean still boiled. As we anchored up for the night, we noticed that Jeff's ski was sinking. Billy dived into the dark and shark-ridden ocean at 1:00 a.m. to throw a rope around it so it could be retrieved. The ski was hauled out of the water and drained, and the engine fired first go.
With the first-and heaviest, we'd hoped-part of the journey over, we hankered for some shuteye. But a mad chorus of snoring made sleep impossible for some, so I dragged myself into the dining room and collapsed on the floor, finally copping some kip.
Sunday, Day 2. Sanctuary Found
The second day of the journey once more awoke to a torrid ocean, but, being on the leeward side of the wind, at least it was offshore. We cruised around to a point break, which had been surfed before, but for the stiff offshore we needed skis slingshot onto the waves. Such a serene setting: a tranquil bay, reeling rights, ominous cliffs rearing in the background, separating a lost piece of land from the continent, and a sense of complete isolation-a desert in the middle of an ocean. Now this felt like home.
Toward dark, the point started to really fire. Vass was the standout, pulling into the longest and heaviest of pits, but not far behind was Josiah, a seventeen-year-old with a huge future on his plate. Billy and Jamie had engine trouble. They hauled their ski onto the deck, where a couple of gallons of saltwater were found in the fuel tank. How the hell that got in there we had no idea, but given the punishment of the tow-out, anything was possible.
With an abating wind at dusk and rising full moon on the horizon, the location turned surreal as a horde of pastels enveloped the sky and landscape. The sanctuary had been found. We retreated to the safer anchorage around the corner, cracked open the Coopers, and feasted on a few kilos of legendary Venus Bay prawns. It was a ritual that we'd repeat each afternoon of the trip.
Monday, Day 3. The Big Blow
We were expecting this to be the wildest weather of the trip. The deep low sitting several hundred kilometers below us was the strongest of the winter. The swell had certainly jumped, and if it weren't for the blustering side-shore conditions, the 10- to 12-foot waves would have been epic. If it's this big on the eastern side of the island, how big would it have to have been on
the side open to the brunt of the storm?
Most of the day was spent siphoning the spoiled fuel in Billy's ski from the tank, cleaning, resiphoning, and refueling again and again. Seeing the spontaneous stroke in his eyes when the ski roared to life and then the exasperation and disappointment when it died again was heartfelt by all. This happened several times in between the hours of tireless drudge work.
By the end of the day they believed it was running well enough to go surfing. We had a thirty-minute steam in the trawler to get to the point, so Billy and Jamie put trust in their handiwork and went ahead, battling a raging ocean to claim some waves before the rest of the crew arrived. As they charged forward, they disappeared in the ungodly looking ocean. We feared for their safety. If the ski broke down, they'd have been blown into the 400-foothigh cliffs and smashed to pieces, ski and bodies both.
We arrived at a windswept point, the wind not quite offshore enough to keep it from being epic. Ten- to twelve-foot lines poured down the rocky foreshore, but it was more a mercy surf for the sake of getting off the trawler. Still, a few fun waves went down, and the location showed the potential at a bigger size.
Day 4. Finding the Bosenquet Bombie
The weather was still up at 6:00 a.m. My heart sank. I'd known all along that this was the day we'd score-if at all. We still had another 10 miles to the reef Jeff had seen years ago while shark fishing. Given his surfing background, the hunch was more than enough to set up this mission. But at this point, I truly thought we had bitten off ten mouthfuls.