*****
In years past, Shawn and Drake had joined the fray at Mavericks, the iconic wave in Northern California, whenever Mavs went off, or pumped in waves sixty feet or higher. When it did produce, pro surfers from around the globe dropped everything and flew in for the bust out, but only after three or four times, for Drake it became the same ol’ – same ol’, and sliding down a big sloping wall of water was no longer a challenge for him. All you had to do it make the drop and hang on. He considered Mavericks a wave for mere mortals.
For today’s assault on Drake’s new move, they were fortunate the surf planets lined up, and the anticipated swell they had tracked for three weeks was developing as they had hoped. The first confirmation of the pending swell was perfectly timed for their announcement at Surf Expo when the percentage probability hit eighty-five percent likely to occur. After they decided on Hawaii, they then had to select an intercept point to engage the waves. The original thought for an optimum break was either Pipeline or Waimea Bay, two classic big wave beaches known worldwide, but after careful inspection of the approach and angle of the waves, they decided on an unfamiliar left breaking wave at a place called Coast Guard Beach. It seemed their best bet for a perfect hollow tube.
Shawn knew his pal Drake, when attempting new maneuvers, preferred right breaking waves, but Coast Guards was the wave that would open up the forty-foot tunnel of blue power needed to complete the revolutions. Drake wanted Waimea, but conceded to Shawn’s wishes, relenting to the fact this type of event pays big, and if there was anything Drake liked better than women, it was cashola. Once they agreed, Drake assured Shawn, wave direction was the least of their worries; this was a swell not to be jacked with.
Drake screeched into the Puakea Point parking lot less than two miles south of Coast Guards at precisely 10:45 a.m., with optimal tides expected between 11 a.m. and one o’clock this afternoon. The limited spaces were packed with rescue vehicles and press. It was impossible for even the marine safety patrol to get their jet skis out at the beach at Coast Guards. Shawn was pleased he was once more right in one of many of his predictions; the wave size at Coast Guards would prohibit beach launches, so it had always been his intention to load up and shove off from here. Without looking up, Shawn heard Frisco before he saw him, and by the time he glanced away from his work, Frisk had launched out of Drake’s jeep and was bounding over for the much anticipated jaw-soaking face-licking.
“Little Frisquit Basket, how goes it pup? Love ya Bisco, you be the best dog in the whooollllle universe.” Shawn praised Frisco between slurps; he always had the impression Frisco felt he had his own late-night talk show and everyone was keenly observing his demonstration of human adoration. Shawn was clearly only a guest on Frisco’s stage. My party, my fun as far as Frisco was concerned. Shawn had no earthly idea what spun through Frisco’s canine brain, but whatever he was taking, he wanted some. Frisco made everyone around him happy, because he was happy. After one more three-sixty facial smattering, Frisco left Shawn’s side and headed off to find another dry-faced favorite and started all over again.
A nineteen foot rigid inflatable boat (RIB) was what they’d use as today’s platform for the shoot. And in an unusual move, Deep Surf hired a videographer to work beside Shawn, but only after some heated negotiations. Shawn had no use for video. He felt catching every strung-out performance was too easy. Only a photograph provided a focus point of the very moment of beauty and light. Drake would also join them and once at Coast Guards, jump onto a Deep Surf jet ski which towed a specially designed “sled.” If the surfers wiped out and were caught between breaking waves in the danger zone, the jet skis zipped in, the surfers would grab one of the sled’s rubber straps and flip them up and out of danger as the Jet Ski whisked away before the next wave could hit.
Drake had even purchased Frisco a doggy personal floatation device as a precautionary measure against him falling in.
Shawn turned to Drake and the video team and shouted, “C’mon, let’s load up and head out, peak conditions in little less than twenty-five minutes and it’s going to be a bitch to get up to the break with this swell; the ocean is a tumultuous mess! And guys, I understand you love what you do, and Deep Surf wants video of Drake’s attempt, but stay out of my way. If I find one of your heads in front of my lens, you and your shit are going in!”
Frisco leapt on to and inside the RIB settling down between Shawn and Drake. Frisco was boat-smart and knew to keep low for the bumpy ride.
The boat and three jet skis along with one Hawaiian Surf Rescue vessel reached Coast Guards in less than ten minutes and at the break, along the shore on the road above the beach, you could see hundreds of spectators sitting on their vehicles or with their legs dangling over the cliff’s edge. There were also several other independent surf magazines and brands with crews on location, but a little grease in the right palms had made sure only Deep Surf obtained a Marine Rescue Permit to be on the water.
Shawn and his crew, plus one other RIB hosting a number of Deep Surf VIPs, moved into position a safe distance from the break. Two older Deep Surf pro surfers were also invited to surf, but Shawn made it clear to everyone, Drake was to be the main attraction. If you happened to snag a sequence of one of other guys it was cool, but not at the expense of missing Drake.
There was another reason they needed the jet skis. Waves of this size travel faster than a human can paddle and the only way to gain sufficient speed to catch the monsters is to be towed in using a super-quick personal watercraft or PWC. The PWC driver tosses a tow line back to the surfer who grabs the water ski handle at the end. As the PWC lurches forward the surfer who has his feet planted on the board, nose up underwater, rises when the driver accelerates and is immediately brought to a standing position. Gaining to speeds in excess of forty miles-per-hour, the driver runs parallel to the wave approaching the shoreline with the surfer hanging on for his life behind, until the wave reaches the necessary steepness. With one final burst of speed, the surfer is catapulted into the bowels of the ocean’s fury. The Jet Ski zooms safely off into the outer zone.
As Drake’s PWC pulled up to the RIB, the driver yelled above the rumbling thunder from the waves exploding on the jagged reef. “Yo Brah, biggest and knurliest I’ve ever seen it. You fuck up here Brah, and you’ll be eating coral with the island Gods!”
As usual, Frisco became agitated watching Drake hop onto the back of the ski with board in one hand, his other around the driver’s waist. Shawn reached out and held onto Frisco’s lifesaving harness. “No you don’t Risky Frisk, ain’t any way you’re getting in that water. Doggy life vest or not, you’d end up as liquefied puppy paste!”
Before they sped off, Drake turned to Frisco and said, “Frisco, no! Stay! Good boy! Stay! Gonna catch a couple screamers out here, and we’ll be on the beach in no time throwing you some tennis balls!” Drake gave Shawn a nod, slapped his driver on the shoulder and they roared off towards the line-up. Frisco gave his body a twist, causing Shawn to lose his grip, and jumped up on the rail, barking out to Drake. Shawn looked out to the horizon and, in the distance he could see a mountain range of water rolling towards them.
Drake’s driver took them out two hundred yards and began to test the edge or shoulder point to be sure he knew how close he could get if Drake got into trouble. Even from this distance, Shawn could see Drake’s wide eyes as a massive green angry beast rolled through, causing them to push back another hundred yards from the lineup. From Shawn’s vantage point, the seas lacked organization — and without a pattern, the risks were magnified.
“It’s too unruly; no rhythm,” Shawn spoke over their wireless comm. “Got to have a natural flow man. I can’t pick up on it; Drake, can you feel it? Do you think it will find itself?”
“It’s a bit dicey Brah, but me and my two boys are gonna hang out with our drivers just outside the impact zone for a while and observe. If it doesn’t settle, no worries, I ain’t going. Cool?”
Wow, Shawn thought,
not too often does Drake takes a wait-and-see approach. Glad it’s not just me who is treating this seriously.
“Drake Ol’ Pal couldn’t agree more. Sure wouldn’t want little Frisco embarrassed if his Daddy bit the big one and ate a gargantuan water biscuit.”
After a bit more comparing, they both agree to assess conditions for fifteen to twenty minutes longer and then make a final call.
As Drake waited, each of the Deep Surf pros attempted to ride the behemoths. One made it, the other crashed and burned, but their only objective was to hang on and make the waves without wiping out. Drake’s goal was to push the envelope with his first ever 360 in a Holland Tunnel-sized barrel. Shawn wished now he hadn’t laid down the challenge for Drake; way too risky, these waves were killers. Five more minutes and Shawn would call it and pull Drake in, but before the time was up, one of the pros finally snagged a clean tube and pulled off a great ride. Shit, Shawn thought, after that wave, Drake’s gonna go for it. There’ll be no holding him back. Damn it.
Right away he heard in his ear bud, “Doable dude, these are proverbial doers! You know what they say Brah — he who hesitates is lost!”
Shawn came right back with the expected response, “Yes, my brotha, but haste makes waste indeed!”
“You’re the shits Brah, indeed and thereby, I shall be goin’ for it. Get your spook camera dialed in because the show is about to begin!”
Drake jumped off the ski, board under his arm and the driver threw him the tow line. Shawn asked his guy to bring the RIB as close as safely possible to the takeoff point, instructing him to move along the periphery at about one hundred and fifty yards from the break…when Drake caught his wave.
He then instructed, “Run parallel to the curl as it careens towards the shoreline. You’ll have to take some risks, Drake, sure as shit is!”
They had to stay clear of the suction created at the base of the swell as it moved over the reef. After a wave crossed the depths of the open ocean unimpeded, then encountered a drastic depth change (from two hundred and fifty feet deep to only four feet deep within a quarter of a mile), surfers call this a “slab.” The energy of a wave doesn’t carry water; it moves through water and requires water to continue its journey. When it arrives at land, it sucks water from every possible source, and with nowhere for the energy to go, it rises straight up and drains the reefs dry. Not a good place to be as all the power looks for a new place to call home!
Shawn signaled to slow and the boat drifted, but no one cuts their engines. All must be at the ready. He then double checked the settings on the Sentient to be they are correct. He glanced at his backpack to make sure his backup camera was ready in case the Sentient failed. This is not the day to fail to get shot. Shawn had a perfect view down the barrel, as one of the biggest sets of the day made its appearance and Drake needed not call in to Shawn as he knew this would be the one.
Drake let the first two of the three waves roll through. One of the other surfers took the second and after he was launched into the wave he careened down the face, smelled disaster pending, then, using all his downward speed he arced back towards the peak where he shot off the lip and into the heavens, reaching a height of more than sixty feet. “Wendy, I can fly,” Shawn blurted.
“Oh, my brother, this is insane” he called to Drake, not expecting a response.
On the third wave, Drake (still treading water, feet beside his board, tow handle in the left hand), signaled with a little salute, and a stream of water emitted from the back of the ski. Drake turned to the PWC driver with a heads up, gives a high sign to one of his Deep Surf pals nearby.
Drake lifted from the water, crouched down tight on his board rising gradually as the jet-ski gains speed. They head straight towards the face of the third wave which, at this depth, looked more the Cliffs of Dover. Moving faster, Drake carved one broad turn while the jet ski jumped forward. Shawn could see it, and as anticipated, Drake dropped the handle, ideally positioning himself in the sweet spot, allowing the swell to carry upward as the wall of water began to climb.
Solid insertion, good, Shawn thought.
As the wave peaked, Drake seemed to hover along its crest, and then pointed his boards tip straight down the face as he became a tiny speck hurtling at ever-increasing velocity with the board skipping across the wall, at times barely touching the water.
The effort to stay in contact with such a steep drop took every bit of Drake’s effort. He understood; in order to make all three spirals in a curl of this size, speed mattered most. So as he reached the base of the wave, he did the longest bottom turn Shawn had ever seen him execute. Climbing back up to the lip, he dodged the powerful cascading furl of water, hurtled downward again, but this time turning at the mid-wave, his legs rattling like a giant slalom skier in the Olympics.
Then, as the tube began to form, the texture of its inner surface turned to glass (the wind no longer an influence), and the wave became a hollow, grinding generator of ferocious mist and spitting water. Drake’s ears popped as the pressure increased deep within the watery core.
Shawn was on it. His shutter exploded as he prayed the multiple processors could keep up with hundreds of images pouring in from the camera’s sensors.
From the boat, unable to place his monopod on the deck to stabilize the camera, he resorted to holding more than eighteen pounds of gear with his left arm, knees bent and micro-adjusting his posture to the shifting movements of tide, wind and water. All the while Frisco snoozed peacefully, nestled between Shawn’s feet, his favorite spot anytime Shawn photographed his master Drake.
Three life-saving services from Kona, Hawi, and Honokaa now had PWCs on the water and moved into position. Each was on station to act as backup to the others in the event of a mishap, staged to rescue Drake if anything went wrong.
In the gaping barrel, Drake looked pretty relaxed when he suddenly angled up, allowing the wave to take control. As the circular direction of the water lifted him up the face, he drove up and stuck to the ceiling of the tube. For one split second he was upside down looking at the reef twelve inches below the surface far below, like a gymnast acquiring a landing point. The inertia which brought him there then carried him fully around and over the falls, while still upright and seemingly in control.
At that moment though, something went terribly wrong. Drake was carried much farther out than he would have been on a smaller wave. At once, Drake lost the centrifugal force stickiness which held him to the wave and, before one complete rotation he disconnected and free fell into the “pit.” He reached for the rail of his board and pulled it under him just in time, but the angle combined with the speed he was travelling, forced Drake to land off balance. Attempting a small turn to regain his inertia only caused him to head in the direction towards the full weight of the collapsing wave.
Looking through the lens, Shawn was the only one to witness the look on Drake’s face as he realized he was too late to react as immeasurable tons of water crash down upon him. The last thing Shawn saw was Drake’s board snapping in two as his best friend was engulfed in a living mountain of whitewater. Shawn stopped shooting and, although the surf was deafening, all was quiet as Frisco jumped to his feet.
—————
The operator of Shawn’s RIB blurted, “Oh fuck, that was bad,” as they watched marine rescue shoot into the zone trying to get as close as possible to search for Drake or his board in the field of foam between the sets.
Some surfers trained to hold their breaths for more than four minutes in case that’s what it takes to get to the surface. Shawn knew Drake could hold his for five; he was always better than the guy next to him.
After three minutes though, considering the violence of the wipe out, there was still no sign of Drake, and Shawn became seriously concerned. Drake usually found his way to the surface within one or two minutes, but three…it never took him this long.
Shawn dropped the Sentient and it crashed to the deck. He clipped a leash onto Fris
co and handed it to one of the other surfers who had returned to their boat. He called in one of the Deep Surf jet skis, told the driver to get onboard, took his place and twisted the throttle to full, taking off to join the search. At least a dozen rescue boats and skis darted in and out of the foam zone, some dangerously close to being crushed themselves. Shawn was frantic knowing each and every wave would push Drake over and over down hard upon the reef.
On his fifth trip into the zone, he heard from another over the radio, “He’s there, look! It’s his board, its tombstoning!”
Shawn whipped his ski around and saw the tail of Drake’s board bobbing up from a mound of foam swirling in the raging whitewater. He realized this offered little relief; it only meant Drake, if still attached to the board by his leash, was somewhere beneath the surface. It had now been more than fifteen minutes.
Before anyone could reach the board, another wave crashed in driving the board to disappear again beneath the surface under the boiling foam in an area the size of a football field.
After five minutes, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter appeared overhead as by now there was a likelihood Drake might have been sucked under any one of the waves and pushed out to sea so the search area was expanded to encompass one mile of beach to the north and south, as well as the open ocean along the western coast of the island.
As hours passed and night fell, it became dangerous for on-water search and rescue (SAR) operations, so all the smaller vessels were called in and made their way back to the beach at Puakea Point while the USCG helicopter refueled a number of times and continued using their spotlight to comb the seas. Teams of volunteers walked up and down the beaches in search of any sign of Drake.
As their RIB drove up onto the sand, Shawn did his best to calm Frisco, who hadn’t stopped barking or whining since they turned the boat back to the beach. The little guy knew something was wrong. Drake was always onboard when they headed in.
Shawn knelt besides Frisco, holding him close trying to calm him, but Shawn’s emotions were drained. He wanted to cry, to scream, he had to find his friend. Anguish filled his heart as he did his best to squelch the pain within. Already the asshole news mongers were sticking microphones in his face: “Do you think you’ll find Drake?” “Any chance he is still alive?” “Do you feel partly to blame?” Question after question until Shawn gave one reporter a crack across the side of his head with the back of his hand. “Get the fuck away from me, scumbag!”
After that one of the Deep Surf exec’s had security push the reporters and crowds back and away from Shawn and Frisco. Shawn sat low on the edge of the boat, head in one hand with his other on Frisco’s forehead. “I’m sorry pal, I’m so sorry!”
As night fell, with a decision from the air station at Barber’s Point, the Coast Guard temporarily suspended SAR efforts until morning. The offshore cutter ceased operations. A marker had been dropped at the spot of Drake’s crash and would track the drifting currant throughout the night.
But one RIB had stayed on the water — the one holding Deep Surf’s private rescue team. In the fading light, Shawn could see it heading in from the search area and someone aboard waving his hands. As it reached the shore and he could finally see into the boat, Shawn could just make out the Deep Surf logo on top of a splintered board tied to the transom. In the center of the boat was a rescue plank and on it, the dead and lifeless body of the best friend Shawn had ever known.
Frisco, spotting Drake, wrestled himself from Shawn’s grip and flew in the direction of the skiff. Before they had unstrapped Drake’s corpse from the center support, Frisco was beside his unresponsive master, licking his face, confused, whimpering and howling the most harrowing cry. Tears erupted on everyone’s faces, including some news media crew. The Deep Surf execs, and even the rescue teams who had seen so much in their years of service, could not hold back the intense sorrow felt by all who were present.
Shawn ran to Drake’s side. “No buddy no, God no! Why did I ask you to do this? This, this is my fault!”
Shawn lifted Frisco in his arms and burrowed his face into Frisk’s fur, heaving and sobbing while experiencing a level of despair he didn’t know existed. He looked up for one moment as they transferred Drake’s body to a gurney.
On the stretcher before him lay his dead friend; the bloom of life gone from his grey face. “What have I done to you Drake, what have I done?”
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