Then in December 1995 my lifelong dream came true. I was invited to surf in the Eddie. Thanks to Eddie Rothman, the North Shore enforcer who insisted on putting my name in the mix, I would be surfing with the likes of Brock Little, Johnny Boy Gomes, Sunny Garcia, Derek and Michael Ho, Marvin Foster, Aaron Napolean, Titus Kinimaka—all the hard chargers I’d long admired and competed with for waves. Kelly Slater was one of the lone non-Hawaiians on the roster.
A few weeks later, on December 29, George Downing, who’d been tracking a big storm barreling across the Pacific, made the call. All the surfers were to show up Friday morning at Wai-mea. The weather report was calling for a high surf advisory. This usually meant the entire North Shore closing out, with waves big enough to break across Kam Highway at Lani-ākea. All signs pointed to waves big enough for the Eddie to go.
I showed up at Wai-mea before dawn. The sky was rosy but clear, not a cloud in the sky, but a salty mist hung over everything, the way it does when the waves are macking. The Bay was still in shadow, the sun yet to rise above the Ko’olau Mountains to the east, but you could already see the waves were flawless. Dark swells rose up in a straight line to form steep walls of water that broke neatly across the length of the Bay. The light wind was offshore, guaranteeing they would hold their shape. A set rolled in, twenty feet easy, and when it broke, sending white water thirty feet into the air, the ground shook.
By 8 a.m. the Kam Highway was bumper to bumper. Wai-mea Bay Park was packed with spectators, standing room only. By 9:30 the judges were seated up on their scaffolding and the army of photographers stood on the rocks, tripods in place, zoom lenses pointed at the break.
There were thirty-three participants that year, and we would surf in two rounds, each round comprising eleven surfers in the water for fifty minutes. Surfing the Eddie was a spiritual experience, celebrating the soul of a great Hawaiian, a great human, and also the gift of the perfect, magnificent waves right outside our front doors. But the judging was anything but perfect. Like everything cooked up and administered by human beings, it was subjective and inconsistent. There were seven judges who scored each surfer’s ride based first on the wave’s height, then on the takeoff, whether you got barreled, and whether you were able to pull off a bottom turn and a cutback or two. The high and low scores were tossed out, just like in the Olympics. Sometimes you’re on a closeout and the judges throw you a great score, and sometimes you make a great wave and you’re largely ignored. I’ve watched it over the years to figure out how best to surf it, and the only thing I’ve learned is that whoever Eddie wants to win that day will prevail.
I surfed in the third heat. Paddled out as fast as I could. A little impatient, maybe. Fifty short minutes to catch the hugest waves and deliver a ride that will wow the judges. I miss my jet-ski, my tow partners Charlie and Dawson. I paddle up and over the first set of waves. The sound of white water crashing is deafening. I’m grateful for it; it keeps me from thinking too much about when I broke my back on a much smaller day.
Once outside I paddle to the spot where I feel the waves will break, based on my predawn assessment from the beach. Sure enough, the first wave of the next set starts to rise up only a few paddle strokes away. I take off. The face is so steep. Air-drop. Feel weightless, my toes clutching the board so I won’t lose it before I hit the trough. Boom. Wobble a little, turn, pump off the bottom, and get myself in front. The white water catches up to me, mammoth swirling mountain chasing me. I haul ass out into the channel. Not my best ride on a wave that was maybe only eighteen feet Hawaiian, but still I’m stoked. I catch a few more waves that round, but they’re nothing to write home about.
I was psyched for the next round. It was completely possible to surf the wave of the day during the second round and take the whole thing. I didn’t dare allow myself to imagine the bump my career would take if I won the Eddie. It was too much to hope for. During the few still moments of my life, when the baby wasn’t crying or there were no waves breaking anyplace in the world I could get to at that moment, and I was out on the covered porch behind our house tinkering with my jet-ski, the feeling would seep in that my career, my puny hardscrabble pro career, was probably over.
In the early afternoon something happened that had never happened at the Eddie before or since: the pristine giant swell disappeared. With no warning the huge rolling sets just stopped, as if the sea was exhausted and couldn’t heave itself up one more time.
George Downing conferred with the judges, and the contest was called. It was early in the season. The thought was that surely another Eddie-worthy swell would arrive before the end of February, but it never did. That day went down in history as the half-Eddie, and the prize money was split thirty-three ways. I think I won about fifteen hundred bucks. I was stoked. I’d learned how to do well.
GARRETT McNAMARA, SHOPKEEPER
IN 2000 I OPENED a surf shop called Epic Sports. It sat at the end of a row of small shops in Hale’iwa Town on Kam Highway. Great location, right in the middle of town, an easy walk away from a popular breakfast joint, Cafe Haleiwa. Epic Sports wasn’t limited to surfing gear; I also carried Bad Boy apparel, including their mixed martial arts line. Connie’s brothers were handy and they helped me stain the cement floor and build the wooden clothes racks. Along one wall we built wooden shelves, where the T-shirts were displayed. In the back room I carried a good selection of surfboards. I couldn’t afford to stock new boards, so I sold the used boards of my friends.
The first thing you saw when you walked into the shop was a big color poster of me tacked up on the wall over the register. It was the classic big-wave surfer shot—big wave, tiny guy—taken from a helicopter, so the wave looks even bigger than it was. The wave is just about to break behind me, the heavy lip forever poised against the sky. Me, frozen in time, doing what I loved.
The photo was taken at Avalanche on Christmas Day 2000. I’d taken my WaveRunner out with Kalani Foster, Marvin Foster’s younger brother; Ross Williams, one of those really good surfers who never won any contests but hung with the right people and is now one of the faces of the WSL; Kelly Slater and goofy-foot Rob “Mr. Smooth” Machado, who were at that time in a band (along with Peter King) called the Surfers. Rob had never towed in before but he was determined to do it that day, even though we only had my board. Watching him take off and ride a wave with his feet shoved into the straps fitted for my regular stance was like watching someone dance with his shoes on the wrong feet. We’d laughed our asses off.
That story was my big talking point. I suppose it should have made me wistful or nostalgic or downright sad. But I sold more stuff over the telling of that particular tale, and that in itself gave me a feeling of accomplishment.
Opening the shop was the best idea I had at the time. On May 3, 1997, our son Titus was born. When the baby came Connie and I decided it was time to stop renting rooms to traveling surfers, which left us relying on my always unreliable sponsorship money.
This was a great opportunity to provide some financial stability for my little family. I was still riding for Bad Boy, which was enjoying a moment. The popularity of MMA was skyrocketing, both on the mainland and in Hawaiʻi. Because they already sponsored me I was able to get a deep discount on inventory. Epic was the only place you could buy Bad Boy on O’ahu. Also, Connie was an excellent seamstress and could whip up everything from sundresses to bikinis for the ladies’ department. It was a real family operation and I was proud of it.
I rented another house behind the store so I had an office. We moved our Ping-Pong table there from the house. Guys liked to congregate at Cafe Haleiwa for breakfast, and my hope was they’d then mosey on next door to the shop and hang out a little, play some Ping-Pong, before heading off to surf. I wanted it to be a gathering place as well as a surf shop. I even envisioned setting up a jiujitsu dojo.
Business wasn’t bad. I was able to pay the bills and that felt good. I didn’t mind the routine. In the morning I’d get up with the kids. It took some time to break t
he habit of waking in the dark before dawn to make my daily morning phone calls: I called one number to check the buoy readings and another to check the wind. I’d dialed those numbers thousands of times over the years. After I got dressed I’d walk down the road to Starbucks. Because it was located inside Foodland I’d always run into people I know; surfers, a lot of the time, heading out for a morning session. I’d never been a coffee drinker before, but now I needed a double shot of espresso with sugar and a splash of milk to cool it down, just to get my day started.
Then I drove to Hale-’iwa in my old Ford Taurus, past Wai-mea, past Chun’s and Jocko’s and Lani’s, my all-time favorite break before I quit trying to be a professional surfer. I’d try not to slow the traffic down by crawling along at a few miles an hour, watching the break, just to see it firing, then over the rainbow bridge and into Hale-’iwa. I would park in the back; then, if I had time, walk over to Cafe Haleiwa where my favorite breakfast was Breakfast in a Barrel—an egg and potato burrito with cheese, spinach, and green salsa. Then another double shot of espresso to prep me for my day.
The days when friends would hang out and also the weeks before Christmas were the best. Time flew and I got caught up on the coconut wireless gossip, who was dropping in on who and getting cracked or sent in to the beach because of it, and what new tow-in teams were killing it and what new gear were they using. The Maui boys were still leading the tow-in charge, and they favored a big 155-horsepower Yamaha WaveRunner. I got in a few sessions here and there, when I could talk someone into watching the counter for a few hours.
I made a lot of friends as the proprietor of Epic Sports, people I would never have known otherwise. I loved my repeat customers, and the people who would come in and say so-and-so had sent them. I liked feeling as if my efforts were appreciated, and this helped me focus on all the good things going on in my life. It’s hard work to stay positive all the time and look at the bright side, but that’s always been how I wanted to live my life.
There were challenges: regular businessman challenges. There were four parking places directly in front of the shop, and for some reason my landlord didn’t like anyone to park there unless they were actively shopping. This discouraged my friends from dropping by, and also discouraged business by making it look like business was dead.
The days I had no customers were nine hundred hours long. Sitting there with the door open, trying to look welcoming, and people passing by, tourists all summer long, carrying giant rainbow-colored cones of world-famous Matsumoto Shave Ice from just down the street, peeking in, looking at me like I wasn’t there, then passing on. Even though I paid dearly for air conditioning, I’d still leave the door open so the shop would look inviting.
On those slow days I had plenty of time to think. You can only wipe down the glass display cases so many times. Only straighten the surfboards in the back room so many times. But you can wonder countless times what you’re doing with your life. My thoughts spooled out differently depending on the day. Same old hamster wheel, just every day a different hamster. Some days my thoughts were ambitious—maybe I could open a string of shops, put one in Honolulu and maybe even in California somewhere. The next day would ache to be in the water, just to get wet. I’d get depressed thinking about my WaveRunner sitting on the back porch under a blue tarp.
I really missed the rush of surfing. I missed it so much that on one of my last trips to Brazil I smuggled in three hundred kilos of T-shirts and shorts just to feel my heart racing. Two luggage carts piled high with eight bags of Bad Boy stuff. I took every article of clothing out of its plastic bag and pulled off all the tags and laid my own dirty clothes on top of each bag. The customs fees I would have to pay for all this merchandise would be more than the plane ticket to pick it up. As I made my way through the line at JFK, I entertained myself trying to think up a plausible reason why I would be traveling with eight giant bags of clothes, but needn’t have bothered. The customs officer waved me right on through.
ONE DAY on my way home from the shop, I decided to stop by the house of a friend who was having a party. It was a mistake. A big one. But I stayed. And it started a habit that would last for years: Escaping boredom and my reality by partying. Connie hated it and begged me to stop. So the usual thing happened. It got ugly. Partying ruined my marriage, or rather I should say I ruined my marriage.
I would promise to stop and I would stop for four, five, six months. Then there would be a big party at one of the surf houses down at, say, Pipeline celebrating some surfer’s Triple Crown triumph or other pro tour contest, and I would go, and Connie would get pissed and I would promise her again that I was through, that I wouldn’t go to another party and, in that moment, as I looked her in the eyes and the words came out of my mouth I meant it. But there was always another party. I felt ashamed, and mad at myself, so I started hiding it, sometimes sneaking out the window after she fell asleep. I started lying to Connie, and then lying to myself, and at the age of thirty-three that was my life.
PART III
The author, in the most memorable ride of his life, surfing Jaws (Pe’ahi) on the north shore of Maui, Hawaiʻi, 2002.
(Ron Dahlquist)
BLUEPRINT
IT WAS EARLY AUGUST 2001. I sat on a tall stool behind the counter and stared for a long time at the poster on the wall beside the register. With little trouble I could summon up that moment, soaring down the face of that wave. For just a moment I pretended money was no issue. Would I rather be that guy on the wave or this guy behind the counter?
Tiny guy, big wave. That was me. This wasn’t me.
This guy sitting behind the counter was a guy many degrees removed from his life’s true purpose.
Here’s how you know the truth of a thing: once you’ve formulated the thought in your head, once you’ve admitted it to yourself, no other thought rises up to contradict it.
When I decided to open the store I’d bought a copy of Small Business for Dummies. It advised me to make a business plan, so I thought, that’s what I need to do. Make a plan for following my life’s passion, for that’s what surfing was.
But I’d been convinced that I could never make enough to support myself and my family doing it. I’d never forgotten that when we moved to the North Shore and Liam started playing baseball, our mom thought being a pro ball player was a more realistic career goal than being a professional surfer. That’s how unlikely my dream was. And I’d lived now for more than a decade struggling to make ends meet, so I knew from experience how hard it was.
And yet, I suddenly believed if I put in 100 percent on my end, God or the universe or the unseen entity that observes and participates in human endeavor, whatever you want to call it, would clear the obstacles in my path. That if I believed in myself, it would believe in me too. I hadn’t heard of the concept of manifesting—not yet—where your thoughts and the vibes you put out into the world help create the reality, but that’s the idea that had revealed itself to me that day.
I grabbed a flyer someone had left on the counter—he was selling a boat or a board or something—turned it over, and started writing.
At the top I wrote: HOW TO KEEP SURFING.
How could I possibly create a life in which I could keep surfing, which also meant make enough money to keep surfing?
Below this I wrote: Win the Eddie and Jaws Tow-In contests.
The Jaws Tow-In World Cup was a new big-wave contest that would run for the first time in 2002 at Pe’ahi, with a first-place prize of $70,000. There were big-wave contests for paddle-in surfers, but this was the first tow-in competition, so the world was watching. The Eddie first-place prize money was $50,000. Neither of these purses was huge, but they were respectable and they would elevate me to a place in the surfing world where I would look more attractive to sponsors than I ever had in the past. The biggest hurdle was getting invited to participate. Neither contest was an all-comers meet, where you could just show up and pay your dues, like in the old ASP days. This was something of a hurdl
e, since I hadn’t been surfing in over a year. Why would contest organizers even think of me, much less vote for me?
None of these thoughts were conscious when I was making my blueprint. These were two competitions that arose in my mind unbidden, contests I longed to win and that I knew I could win. I would never be the best surfer out there, but I seemed to possess one skill that few others did: I wasn’t fearless on the big waves, but I took the fear in stride. I knew firsthand that those colossal waves could crush me, but I had confidence in my ability to endure massive wipeouts and hold-downs, and this made me willing to take risks other surfers weren’t.
The blueprint branched out. What did I need to do to accomplish my goals? Quickly I wrote three headings: Train Hard, Eat Right, Focus Focus Focus; and then under each, the actions I would have to take. I made a training schedule, a menu, and wrote down a few ideas about how I could keep my eye on the prize.
When I was finished my plan looked like a family tree.
I CHOSE August 10, my birthday, to start my program. A few days before I sat Connie down and told her about the blueprint, about what I’d plan to achieve. Her response was guarded until I told her that my plan (obviously) included saying no to partying—I was even going to give up coffee—at which point she said she was in.
I cleaned out the kitchen of all junk food. I did most of the cooking at home so it wasn’t a problem to stop serving musubi (Spam with rice) and potato chips and Coke, and start broiling fish and making salad. I wasn’t a vegan or even vegetarian, but I would eat lean and clean. Tuna, brown rice, and baby greens, mostly. Lots of avocados. Some chicken every once in a while, and when I really felt ambitious and needed a change, I’d whip up a batch of vegetarian chili.
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