Okay, so many people say that if you find a spot here that you like, that it's best to keep surfing it. That's
really good advice, because I really like surfing Sunset Beach! Even though I think variety is the spice
of life, I'll take good old fashioned reliability and the ability to continue to learn more and
more about Sunset. I'm drawn to this break from the moment I get on Kam Highway.
Today, declining swell and surf, 3 to 6 Hawaiian, 6 to 10 California style, a bit mixed up,
lumpy and peaky, some sneaker west peaks, conditions improve all day long, recovering from
a bit of storm surf and HI Surf Advisory yesterday. I took a chance and calculated things
out last night. Forecasts called it all wrong. I thought they were. So I doubled back
behind everyone's back, made my own forecast and prediction, and returned to Sunset.
Wow. It's a real form of Aloha, what that break is doing to me, for me, with me. It's made
me so much more of a surfer.
I mean, I look at it and just dive in. There's no hesitation. Today I got to the outside
and got a wave within 10 minutes, the biggest and best of the day, again, is the first
wave. Maybe I should get there a little earlier? Today was a 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. wave fiesta.
Four hours, noodle armed paddles, 10 waves, three photographers on the beach shooting
the GORGEOUS conditions, and just little 'ol me, paddling into some more semi-bombs.
It's an addiction now, this place. I have found my place in the surfing universe,
and am now dubbing myself, for the 7 days and nights I have been here, "Mr. Sunset." Although
that title is currently, and will forever be, held by Jeff Hackman. Kudos to him.
I know a bit what he must feel like, even though I haven't even really seen Sunset
even remotely close to it's true, dangerous, incredible big day potential. But
I'll appoint myself Mr. Sunset, for the purpose of this one entry. May Mr. Hackman
forgive me.
Yeah, photographers. I spoke to all three before I paddled out. I knew all of them from surfing
the web and looking for a session photographer, and secretly hoped that, as what happened today,
that I would be around when they were shooting freestyle. I bet you anything they all got
shots of my first wave. I hope so. I'll pay them for each and every frame, every second
recorded. I was out for so long today that one of the guys left, ate, then came back again and
probably got my last wave, which was pretty good, but I got bounced around a little
on the inside by some high tide warble, flailed around a bit, but made the wave.
You know what's so cool about this relationship between me and Sunset? It grows and morphs and tweeks and pounds
and horsetail sprays in new directions on a moment by moment basis. Every wave is different
as it approaches, in look, feel, thickness, direction, etc. No wave is ever the same or breaks
the same way. Very experienced surfers here have chatted me up, telling me that one can never
actually get a wave at Sunset, it has to come to you, then you surf it. And it's such
an incredibly accurate statement that's it's insane.
Unfortunately a couple of waves sucked up really hard just before I started to take off on some
10 to 15 foot faces on DP and I pulled back. On one wave everyone was yelling at me to go
because I was deep and slotted but just as I started to move forward the wave heaved out
so hard I thought I might get pitched and killed! Well, not killed, but I have a perfect track
record going. Not a single pitch, wipeout, reef rash (shhhhhhhhh!). Nothing has gone wrong.
So I pulled back, realizing I should have went, might have made it, and earned more respect.
Instead, I think people were disappointed I didn't go on what would have been my wave
of the day. The first one and last one rounded out a really great session, though, and I think
the photogs all got them both. I walked over to one after the session and in the sunlight
he scrolled through some and showed me an image of me bottom turning but it was hard to
see in the daylight.
I've told several friends back home that one of the major things here that's so different to
me is the BLINDING sunlight. Not only will it fry an egg on your calf in 2 minutes if you
don't have 40 SPF on, but it makes it virtually impossible to see LED screens on video
and digital cameras. You have to use the standard viewfinders. It's that bright. I can't
walk around at any time after 9 a.m. without sunglasses on.
*******
When I dip my hands into the water at Sunset, it's like paddling through the land
of honey, and my hand exits the water at my waist, and it's dripping so sweetly
I just want to lick it all off and savor it. It's a good thing it's so much paddling
because it makes it all that much more sweeter. Sweet jesus the water at Sunset
is so warm, turquoise, aquamarine, green, white sea foam beautiful madness. It is what
paddling through heaven must be like.
The paddles are massive. But I am groomed for this, I have trained for this. Long right,
California point breaks, and reefs at Sunset Cliffs and Windansea that require massive
paddling strength. I have these breaks back at home, these people who push me, those
who support me and surf with me, to thank. My mind and body are so perfectly suited
for Sunset, my actions, observations and rides groomed for this place like the wind
that turns offshore here every afternoon, raining down those sweet honey
droplets of horsetail spray that today I closed my eyes and loved being hosed down
by on passing waves, followed by the thunderous roar of the wave finally
hitting the reef. It's not hitting the reef, bros. It's a big THUD-WHOOSH. Like a bag
of concrete being dropped from a second story window or something.
Today there was an interesting mix of folks out. I recognized Alan Sarlo immediately. Who
wouldn't? The guy looks like a pro wrestler or bodybuilder. He's just huge and fit and powerful. Biggest guy I've ever seen in the water
anywhere. Which leads
me to saying that, you know, there's not a lot of small guys surfing at Sunset. This place is not
conducive, to say, some 25 year old who's 160 pounds riding a stick board. Nope. Ahh-uh.
Forget that. This wave eats guys like that alive. Guys like Sarlo and me and a few other
regulars I've befriended are LARGE men. With thick and long boards. That is who surfs here
and gets the outside set waves. Not many others do.
Today a videographer was out in the water shooting the entire Roxy and O'Neil girls teams, and Layne
Beachly was out again, which I was really happy to see. The two packs of chicks took over the West Bowl for
a couple of hours, maybe for like half the session, about two hours. From amateur to pro level, they were
out, taking off on some inside bombs for the cameras both on the land and in the water.
They were, for the most part, very friendly, polite and totally hot, surfing and looks wise. There were only a couple
of guys out besides myself, so it was like a five to one ration chicks to guys! They were very cool because they didn't drop in
on those of us who took off outside and snaked our way through the Bowl section. It was a pretty professional
atmosphere, very cool to be a part of. And with all of the girls out, it incresed my chances of getting some shots
of me by one of the still photographers on the beach.
The most "unfortunate" wave of the day came when I pulled out of a nice 10 footer (CA style), being
called off by a woman named Pishka, who is from Tahiti. She back paddled me because she hadn't got
a wave in over an hour, and I didn't see her do it as I was turning to get the wave, which came
right at me. I stood up and angled for the bottom, then heard this scream behind me, so I pulled
completely out of the face (almost going back over the falls) because I thought maybe some guy took
off way down the line behind me. But a guy out in the water said it "was that Tahitian girl, and
she ate shit on the drop" and I was SOOOOO bummed. It would have been another great ride. Every one
counts for me here at Sunset. I won't be with my new lover for very much longer.
Piska committed one of the cardinal sins of surfing the North Shore. She backpaddled me (not the sin) and went for a wave
that "wasn't hers" (the sin). The surf culture and art of catching waves on the North Shore is very different than anywhere
else, really. But it's what it SHOULD be everywhere else. The basic principle is that you pick your spot, you make your space,
you take your time and wait, and if a wave comes to you, it's yours and you take it. You don't go paddling around all over the place
snaking waves and constantly re-positioning and stuff, you don't paddle around or behind or in front of someone and take their wave
where they've set up. You wait, you get what comes to you, and that's the way to do it.
Piska made the mistake of poaching a wave that came to me, which forced her to go deeper than she should have. The result was that she
wiped out big time and ended her session that way because I never saw her again for the rest of the day.
One of the most incredible things about Sunset is also looking shoreward, not only at what
is coming at you from the ocean. If you look to the side and down to Pipeline, watching the massively thick
swells march down the coast is truely a sight to behold. The way the water moves here is so
different. I have no idea of how I'll feel when I'm home, how WEAK the surf is going to
seem. Damn. I'm completely spoiled now. Then you can look at the parking lot, or to the north to beautiful
Sunset Point and Backyards. That view at sunset at the end of the day is really spectacular.
Today there were beautiful clouds all over the place, and a little rain squall, and a beautiful
half rainbow formed offshore, framing the break to make it look like a pot of gold, which
it is for me. Then the clouds, only a couple of hundred feet above, would cast shadows
on the water and make the ocean look dark and covered with dark patches, and then you would see these green beautiful waves march into
shadow, begin to feather on the reef, then reappear in the light, and blinding white
feather lips glowed like neon, the wave color would go from black to a Sprite Green,
then explode on the reef as you caught it. It was like the tops of the waves were
glowing white. Just a dream, just a dream. And how ever so beautiful to experience.
********
Okay, so today if feels like vacation. It's the first day it feels like vacation. People don't understand
that surfing is NOT A VACATION. It's WORK. It's exhausting, calorie burning, dehydrating, sweating,
salt water, inpact zone hits and dodges, two hours of travel over a mountain range daily,
lines of traffic, high rises in Waikiki, loading and unloading the Forrester twice a day,
alarm clocks, internet surf reports - instantaneous web updates lasting until 11 p.m. every night - that's work!
But today I made it a point to leave the North Shore a bit early. So I could get some pineapple
ice cream in a waffle cone at the Dole Plantation post-surf. How cool is that!!!
Then I came back to the hotel, unloaded, jumped in the pool, and then, of all things,
hauled ass to the International Marketplace and spent close to $400 on gifts for influential
people in my life, and of course, on some items for myself. I was carrying so many bags that women
were looking at me and some even muttered "Doing some shopping!" to me as they passed by. How funny.
I was the total shopper chick today. But if it don't get done now, I'll never have the time to do it.
Then after that extravaganza it was home, jump in the pool again, shower, and then to have the best
dinner I've had here so far at Dukes. Volcano strawberry-coconut-pineapple smoothie, followed by
fresh striped marlin, on top of a macademia nut orange glaze with mango salsa and a huge scoop of
white rice. Followed by Waikiki's infamous Hula Pie. I can't believe I ate that whole thing.
And now I am here, making notes so I won't forget. If I were to write about everything, I'd be here
forever. But there's still surf to be had, with a building N/NW swell to finish up my stay
on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday is going to be a sad day, without question.
Darrick Doerner has contacted me, tonight, to see if we can get together. Sure bruddah,
I got the golden key. At Sunset. You paddle behind me, bro. I show you de way. Before I got here the
guy wanted $1,000 per day for guiding and lodging. Yeah right.
You know what's a trip? I have not taken the Rocket out of the back seat of the car, or out of the
day travel bag, since Saturday. I kinda knew that would happen! How totally
awesome is that. All I've been riding is the 8-6. It's a little overgunned, but I'd much rather have that
then be undergunned. The Rocket is way too thin to ride at Sunset.
Oh, and I brought so much stuff for everyone and myself that I'm going to have to ship it back
home UPS. There's no WAY I have any room for any of that stuff in my suitcase.
You'll know where to find me tomorrow, prolly.
- Cliff
