Falling From the Sky

(Photo, top, ASP / Cestari 2011, right, ASP / Scholtz 2010)

When Pipeline is off its face, you get a mélange of massive waves, big barrels, chicks drinking beer, and non-stop horrendous wipeouts. When the best surfers in the world are totally charging, flying into horrendous barrels, getting stuck in lips and going over-the-falls like bags of potatoes, there's just so much shit going down.

We arrived at the Pipe car park as the first heat of the day begun, and the mood at the beach was sexy. It was hot and crowded, there were bodies and there were bikinis and there was testosterone and tattoos and some serious macho charging in the water. Talking about charging, these dudes were simply falling out of the sky.

Combine final event desperation, locals with home crowd bravado, a fast-growing swell, wind-wonk and some funky backwash, and the dudes were skydiving, dive-bombing, somersaulting and dodging coral heads. It was great to see the charging, and amazing entertainment for everyone.

Billabong Stretch Your Reality contest winner Andrew Zwiers from Durban got to see a real day at Pipeline up front for the first time in his life, and Billabong kitted the man out and fed him as part of his R50,000 prize as he hung out and watched the swell start pumping.

At first glance it actually looked pretty small, with commentators calling three to six-foot (Hawaiian), which is solid enough, but not Hawaii big. Enough for some solid drops and chunky barrels, but this soon changed and the swell came pouring through. Within the time frame of a couple of heats the swell grew tremendously, and it was soon time for an awesome Second Reef set to arrive, grind through, and smash a bunch of surfers on the head, sending them in and around and down the beach in the wash.

A Second Reef set is gnarly and oh so hilarious to watch from the bravery of being out of range.

A Second Reef set is gnarly and oh so hilarious to watch from the bravery of being out of range. Vans World Cup winner Adam Melling from Lennox Head in Australia was totally charging in his heat and it included a huge drop on a late bomb, with Melling wiping out at the bottom of the wave for his bravado, as well as an eventual heat win over homeboy Brucie Irons. Melling has shown his bravado this year in Hawaii, coming of age as a charger in waves of consequence. “I took a bit of a beating out there,” said the always-humble Melling.

We were all hanging out at the Billabong Pipe house, chatting with Tom Curren, Tony Moniz, Jeff Booth and Brad Bricknell, Occy, Dale Staples and Mike Savage, to name a few. Conversations were pretty much relegated to the ‘Oh.My.God’ and ‘Fuck me look at this coming,’ level of banality, with everyone too sucked into the drama in the water to worry too much about catching up and chin-wagging.  

Ultimate local Jamie O’Brien, with his house in front of Pipe, charged his first round heat to blitz a totally amped Jadsen Andre. Shane Dorian was the next homeboy to have a dig and dig it he did. Up against Patrick Gudaskas Shane-O scratched around, looking for a bomb and he eventually found it in a rare Backdoor smoker that barreled all the way through for a clean exit on the inside to reward him with a 9.17 score. Sick wave, the highlight of the day.

Everyone’s favourite surfer Dane Reynolds klapped Granger Larsen, and Sebastien ‘SeaBass’ Zietz continued on his Hawaiian charge by beating Glenn ‘Micro’ Hall, as the waves continued to pump.

With the huggable CJ Hobgood beating the flamboyant Jamie O’Brien after he attempted a silly looking switch-foot, blew it and snapped his board in the process.

The final heat of the day in round 2 was a nail-biter. Oh hold on, sounds like another cliché doesn’t it? The heat was a bit of a bunfight between showboater O’Brien and hardworking Hobgood, with the huggable CJ Hobgood beating the flamboyant Jamie O’Brien after he attempted a silly looking switch-foot, blew it and snapped his board in the process.

He came in to fetch another board, rode the current out and made it back into the backline with time to spare. JOB pulled into another good one and seemed to claim it vociferously for an average score of 5.0 from the judges. With minutes ticking away and needing a 6.60 JOB gave a wave away to CJ that easily had good enough scoring potential, and the heat was over. Former Pipe Masters winner O’Brien, making some unusual mistakes, was out of the game.  

Swell’s going to pump tomorrow, and it looks like it’s going to go more North. There could be some big Backdoor barrels. But first, we have to take our Stretch Your Reality prizewinner Andy to a Billabong party tonight. Time to catch up and do that chin wagging we spoke about earlier.