Tuesday Tubes: unnamed, untame

Not sure who or where it was taken.  Thought it was Reynolds initially, just that fringe and he did feature in the rest of the gallery, but...well, the man is very capable, but he's too natural to be riding that switchfoot.

Like the rest of the sequence, we'll just leave it to your imagination.  Go ahead and day dream a like.  Could you backdoor, backhand, pig dog this slab.  Of course you could. 

From What Youth, possibly my newest obsession.

Just a classic

and so it needs a place here.

 

.

I'm not sure if Hot & Glassy, or Sleek Zeke the Peak are my best characters.  Swell Mel also looks pretty cool, but I reckon the swell character needs to be more angry, or at least have an evil form that comes out from time to time, like when he feeds off the frustration of surfers in small gutless waves. 

Man, I just want to flip through the non-existent pages behind that cover.

Original artwork by Rick Griffin.  Follow the link and check his work out.

tuesday tubes returns!

well, the only way to get back in to this is force it. 

We're relaunching tuesday tubes with one of the best in the business.  And by best in the business, I mean, he's actually turned getting barrelled into a business.  Not a bad job to have.  If you can get it.

Not all pleasure though.  A lot of hard work goes into this.  And a lot of pain.  These aren't your garden variety barrels.

Have a gander at this, and then ask yourself:  where is My eyes wont dry 4?

credits to the man himself

Curtain call

Curtains.  It's curtains for you.  Let's close the curtain on this.  The Iron curtain. The boerewors curtain.  The lentil curtain.  Curtains seem to draw a definitive line in our language.


Not when we surf.  Behind the curtain is the best place to be.  It may be fleeting.  It may seem to draw out for ever, as time bends the stage and it stretches out infinitely, never calling the act to close.  The dance carries on, hidden to all but those up in the best seats in the house.

Photo: Nathan Smith

But sometimes the best place to witness the performance is to be onstage yourself.

Check the source out - you will spend the next 5 mins of your life better that way.

What's it like...

I'm not a very accomplished surfer.  I've had some good waves on occasion.  I've done some pretty hectic stuff too, but these are the exceptions, rather than the norm.  If, like in other competitive sports, you're only as good as your last performance, well, then I'm not very good at all.

But I have been barrelled.  I've even made it out occasionally.  But, I'm not at the point where it's happening consistently, or where tube rides are more my own making, rather than fortiutous alignment of circumstances - conditions, me being there, and getting everything spot on right.

So, it's weird then that most of my best rides, and all of my tubes, I can barely remember.  They exist in my mind like a dream.  So real one moment, and then a smudge of a memory a moment later.  There's the elation, but once that's gone, it's only a few flickering images that you're left with.  And an insatiable hunger for more.

It's hard to explain why.  Perhaps, you're just so focussed in the moment, that all other brain functions shut down.  Your brain's recording switches off as all that's important is the now.  Maybe it's the adrenalin that cuts off the memory.  I don't know.

Some of Clark Little's magic.  It's even better when its your own...I think.

That fact of the matter its so much more than a visual experience.  I do know that much.  Clark Little has made a career out of recording these images.  It's great.  They're very pretty and it's about as close as most people will ever get to the real thing.  But it doesn't begin to explain what's going on in there.

Reading an article in an old mag the other day and they were saying how the best written words and post surf banter doesn't measure up to a good video section.  And they're right, mostly I guess.  Shadow puppets to flesh and blood.  But, like the Allegory of the Cave, there's always another level up that we can't imagine till we experience it.

Pipe - plain and simple

It's an interesting time to watch the progress of surfing - from tow-ins, to throwing yourself out of a plane to tow-in, from tropical reef passes, to polar slabs, from waiting a month to hear about a contest to watching live in your bedroom. Yep, things have come on a hell of a lot since I was a grom.

One thing stays constant in this, though.  Behold: the one, the only, the never to be surpassed in terms of the ulitmate proving grounds - Pipeline.

Sion Milosky, doing what he did best

Maybe one thing has changed - the name.  Does anyone still call it 'The Banzai Pipeline' anymore?  Or are we just so familiar with it we can drop the formality?  So, it's got its full name, but you can call it Steve or Jerry or Daz or whatever.  It doesn't mind.  Or does it?  I got into the habit of referring to Jerry Collins as Mr Collins just in case he was within earshot and thought I was being disrespectful.   Remember:  This is still the world's most deadly wave.

And it must be the most beautiful and deadly as well - a coral version of a supermodel assassin.  I googled 'pipeline' to see what came up.  3rd on the list, if you're curious - with the Banzai moniker attached.  click on images, and about a full on 1/3 of all images are of this belter.  The remainder are mostly of tubes of oil gushing through what would otherwise be pristine desert or tundra whatever fills the space between oil reserves and humanity. 

I remember hearing Lance Slabbert talk years ago about Hawaii and the light there - particularly on the North Shore.  And that combined with the brutality of it is what makes the most photographed wave in world.  You will get savager (more savage?) barrels elsewhere, but you will struggle to do it so photogenically.  And that is why Pipeline will always be the ultimate proving ground.

And I chose Pipe as today's theme because everyone's getting quite excited for the Pipemastes later this week.  There's quite the forecast.  I'll be settling in for a webcast and few beers for this one. 

Shot to Surfers Village for the pic.  Sion, we miss you man.  Hope you're charging hard on the other side.

Width. Style.

I'll admit it:  I wrote this whole article about how sick it must be to ride a backhand barrel that's so wide you can spread your arms out and claim it.  Then as I was about to publish it, I had another take and whoah: that's no backhand barrel...

Why did I make the mistake?  Kalani Robb here has enough space that he can twist his back and square his shoulders to his line of riding.  That means two things: girth (yes, that word again) and poise.  Where we would all want to lead with our shoulder, if the wave throws like this, and you've got enough class, you can whip this sort of thing out.  Vintage Robb, and what a fine vintage that was.

"I caught a barrel, and it was this big." Credit: Tom Servais

Espn runs a pretty good blog on surfing, even if they are focussed a bit too much on the comp aspect of it, but hey, it's all got it's place.  They had some recent coverage of the Clash of Legends run between the Reef Hawaiin Pro.  Kalani was invited and in seeing that I thought: "Jeez, what happened to that guy."  Someone else, and doubtless many people thought the same and they ran a piece on the guy a few days later.  Check it out if you will.

Shot ESPN/Servais for the pic.

Who and where?

It seems like it's questions week here at Time Between Waves. 

And today's question is who and where?  The first should be fairly obvious to anyone in their late 20's.  Still a very current surfer, just not mainstream.  Oh, yes!  Did you see that pun there?  That wasn't planned.  That. Just. Happened.

As to where, well if you've been there, you'll probably get it.  It's been mentioned on this site before.  Hint: It rhymes with...

...actually, I can't think of anything that it really rhymes with.

Expert joint? Pervert oink? Sweatshirt shtoink?

Thanks to surf.co.nz for the image.

Things likely to happen when you surf Padang Padang

1.  You will have the barrel of your life.
2.  Some asshole, probably Brazilian, will drop in on you.
3.  You will hit the reef (not shown).

Shot to Jarred Hancox and the boys at O&E for this.

tu times tubes for your tuesday

I grew up sponging a beach break.  In winter, storms would bring swell and a fortuitous offshore that would make some pretty heavy, seldom makeable barrels.  Just occasionally, during summer we'd have similar conditions when there was an unseasonal front.  The summer sand pattern meant that a particularly savage rip would form and scour out a channel, and then form a tongue of sand out off the front of the bank.  There was a brutal left that used to break off it.

There was so much water rushing out that takes offs were always stationary, and usually airborne.  Depending on how well you could set your rail during that drop you either got the barrel or the flogging of your life.  Whatever happened, you were about to be plunged into darkness - either complete or just a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.  The current had dragged up so much sediment that the opaque water formed a solid screen.  Those last few seconds before pummeling were awesome as a grom with flexible bones, and an even more indestructable, flexible board.  There was that moment when was nothing left, your last hope was snuffed out and it was just the hollow crunch of an imploding barrel, and your final warm breath in a cold, malevolent tomb.  I tried to find a picture of something similar, but the web clearly doesn't think such conditions are too photogentic.

Like this, but angrier, darker and on your stomach

I wanted to show the realm of shadows in the barrel.  This pic is almost there, but the light through the curtain distracts from my point.  Which I wanted to contrast with this.

A potrait of clarity and composure

Light vs dark, warm vs cold, clear vs dirty, coral vs sand.  The yin in the yang.  Two very different barrels.  Both silouetted for different reasons.  But both there for the same reason.

And I think i've touched on this before:  one of the things I love about surfing is how many different forms it takes.

Pics from the legendary Aaron Chang and NJ Monthly

PS - don't google 'dirty barrel' unless you want learn about cleaning rifles.

Just another barrel...

Here's a quick barrel of Steph Gilmore at Backdoor.

Steph, Backdoor, Pipemasters last year.  That's about it.  I'm not going to be patronising.  "A girl, a heavy, Hawaiian reef, etc."  We've known what girls are capable of. 

On a technical note: look at where she's looking - way down the line.  This is not a point and shoot pit.  She has a lot of work to do to make it.  Here arms and shoulders tell me she's getting ready to compress and drive.  With that, and her focus, and the fact that she's Steph Gilmore, I'd wager she makes it out of this one.

Thanks TWS

(Some manly moustache related entries to follow)

We can only imagine

The back hand barrel.  The pig-dog tube ride.  Is there anything sweeter?  To anyone whose ever pulled their rail with one hand and stroked the wall with palm of his other you know the feeling.  That back knee straining with pressure on the inside of your leg. 

I can only imagine what it's like at pipe - the ultimate arena.  I can imagine the frantic jostling with the pack.  The surge as the swell lifts you.  The realisation that it's your wave.  The real realisation that this is your wave - to make or fail.  Then the solitude.  The plunge.  The grab.  The line.  Then it's up to you.  Spat out into the channel?  Or ground up on the reef?

Josh Kerr, feeling it

Photographer Zak Noyle, and pic thanks to Surfer Mag.

A cheeky late drop into the barrel

sjoh - busy day not surfing.

So this post is that late late drop that you stick in the pocket you still can't work out how.  It's a last wave on the hooter to clinch the heat - well done Travis!  It's the last spot that you check and against all judgement, it's firing.  It's rocking up at the bottle store after an epic session and slipping in as they close the door.  It's the last space at the front of the parking lot giving a panoramic of the beach from the comfort of your cabby.  It's that only pair of boardies on sale that you dig, and it's your size.  It's the lonely beer in the otherwise empty fridge.  I could go on.

Actually, I can't.

surfer: Alex Gray, Photographer: Bryce Lowe-White

Cool like the girls at school, walking single file, hands behind your back, neatly down the line.  We only wish we could be that casual in the barrel.

Source: Surfermag

Tuesday Tube

Like that first set wave reeling down the point: get scratching for the shoulder, pal.  here it comes.

I'm not naming this spot, but if you hang in Cape Town, you probably know where it is. And probably have the same love/hate relationship that I do with this wave.  From me, it's all love.  All I want is to be held in her spinning embrace before being gently released onto her delicately curved shoulder.  All she wants to do is break my boards, break my bones, and break my resolve.  She want's to bitch slap me through the face with multiple sets.  She wants to cast me of her luscious lip and shove me into the sand.  She wants send me whimpering to the beach so she can watch me walk away in shame.  But I won't.  I will love her without ever being loved back.  Such is her beauty.

Jarrad Howse - feeling the love

Pic from AVG.  He loves the place to and does some great work down there.