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In a world increasingly divided by screens, labels, ‘wokeness’ and cancel culture; it’s occasionally refreshing to be bowled over by the indiscriminate and unflinching power of the ocean.
A 10-foot swell won’t care what diet you follow. It has no regard for the colour of your skin, which pronoun you have in your email signature, or the gender you prefer to date.The careening ball of energy that barrels through a lineup, discarding boards and bodies in its communal shellacking, presents a raw and bracing reality check that we’re all human.
It’s an intoxicating metaphor, says Bethany Hamilton.
“The ocean is not easier on me than it is on you, or anybody else. It’s an even playing field,” she says in an interview with Tracks, some 8,000 kilometres across the Pacific on a Zoom call from her home in Hawaii.
“I often bring ocean metaphors into my talks with people because it’s a cool way to understand life. We’re all gonna have challenges.Understanding that there are going to be bumps and painful times along the way –that doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of what we’ve got and stay grateful and positive. We’ve just got to work through the challenges that life throws our way.”
Bethany – whose surname changed to Dirks when she married in 2013, but the world
never really caught up with the rebrand –has built a multi-stream career on overcoming challenges. So much so, that her website calls her a “relentless overcomer”. Her story needs little introduction.
The world knows her as the Hawaiian 13-year-old who brutally lost her arm to a Tiger shark attack in 2003. The 4.3 metre beast took her left arm, and almost her life, as she lost 60 per cent of her body’s blood and went into hypovolemic shock (when blood loss is so severe, the heart has nothing left to pump).
But it was Bethany’s comeback story that has become legendary. In one of sport’s great resilience tales, just four weeks later, she paddled back out with her remaining arm and continued surfing. Once she mastered the art of a single-armed duck-dive (more on that later), her competitive career took off. She won a National Title as a teenager, taking out Carissa Moore in the process.She has spent the years since then competing in WSL events, starring in feature films Unstoppable (2020) and Soul Surfer (2011), travelling the world as an inspirational speaker, hosting mental health and resilience retreats, and inking her name on no less than nine books.
But no matter how high her star rises, the 32-year-old mum of three can always be brought back to earth in a way all surfers comprehend. With a wholesome rag-dolling at her home break of Hanalei Bay
“Some days when you get out there, it can be so frustrating and discouraging. It just feels like the ocean is sending you back to the beach, like, ‘No not today! You will duck dive 25 times before you make it to the lineup!’,” she laughs.
‘We’re all compensating for something’
It’s refreshing to hear Bethany moan about being belted during a paddle out in the same way I’d complain, gasping for air, after finally reaching the lineup on a solid day at Maroubra. Until now, I’d assumed the professional surfer and big-wave charger was not operating on the same level as mere humans.
Her Instagram page looks like the profile of a Marvel action hero crossed with a fitness trainer, travel influencer and Mother of the Year. Washboard abs and home workouts show up between cute clips with her kids and husband, Adam. Those are juxtaposed next to shots of Bethany taming saltwater skyscrapers in some of the globe’s most terrifying corners of ocean.
Plenty of parents learn to do things single-handedly but Bethany quite literally gives the phrase new meaning. Like when she tow-surfed Jaws at its biggest, clutching the rope with one arm as she hurtled into the path of a 40-footer, just six months after giving birth to her first child, Tobias. The bowel-loosening footage of her ride was a contender for the2016 Big Wave of the Year award. In the same year, she beat Stephanie Gilmore in a heat of the Fiji Pro, eliminated then-top WSL seed Tyler Wright from the quarterfinals, and went on to finish third in the competition.
Giving birth to her third boy last year has not slowed her down either. In January 2022, Bethany stunned the world by scooping into tubes round enough to park trucks in during The Backdoor Shootout at Pipeline. One still-frame image from the comp went viral: Beth-any hooking into a backhand barrel by reach-ing her right arm across her body to grab the opposite rail. It’s an epic shot for any surfer; made all the more impressive by the balance and rotational strength required to achieve that position on a flexing, vertical wall with just one arm. It was enough to inspire the surfing world’s awe and win a wildcard entry into the Pipeline Pro.
“I guess I probably tend to lead more with my front arm than my back arm,” she says, when reflecting on her technique.“Once you’re up on your feet, I feel like you don’t really need both arms. Overall, it’s just about trying to keep my body strong.“I see some things in my surfing where I am compensating in different ways. But then again, everyone is compensating in different ways. A lot of surfers have dysfunctional bodies and styles of athleticism. We all have to figure out how to make that work.
A new wave of surf hero
Rip Curl have sponsored Bethany since she was nine years old. The brand supported her after the shark attack and continued to pay her to compete and travel throughout her teens and 20s. However, her profile – alongside RipCurl’s – has unmistakeably risen in recent years as surf media has begun to embrace diversity in all its forms.
Photographs like the one of her pulling in at Backdoor are being celebrated for badass surfing, but also for the visual inspiration they are offering to young amputee athletes. If anything, Bethany has done more for the brand and for the next generation with one arm than she could have hoped to do with two.
“Of course, surf brands needed to feature more women in surfing because ultimately it comes back to the brand being able to sell product –and the women’s market is huge,” she says.
“But right now it feels like there’s this really cool movement to celebrate women’s surfing in all its forms – from competitive female surfers my age and younger to the super groms coming up, to the graceful, beautiful longboard girls or the big-wave charging females. There are the free surfers out there just roaming the planet chasing their passion, it’s so inspiring on every different level.
“Lately I’ve just seen so much cool, rad stuff among female surfers. Every other day, I’m being wowed by someone else in the ocean, who’s approaching waves in a different manner than myself. It’s just so fun to see and be part of and celebrate.”
Growing up, Bethany never imagined she’d see one-armed surfers in magazines and movies. But it’s fair to say she had the kind of independent, screen-free childhood that might inspire her confidence to be among the first.
Her youth on the rainforest-covered garden island of Kauai sounds idyllic: she and her two older brothers spent their days diving for shells off the lava rock coastline and going to school with wet hair and sand between their toes.Occasionally their parents might catch them“riding turtles, which is illegal, but I was a kid…”Their local was Pine Trees, on the north shore of Hanalei Bay; also famous as the childhood stomping ground of the Irons brothers – Bruce and Andy.
Bethany can’t even remember her first wave –surfing was so instilled in her life, and the early signs were that she was extraordinarily talented.But the attack put an immediate dent in plans for her professional future. When she made up her mind to get back in the water, the hardest part of her sport now had nothing to do with riding waves. Paddling out was almost enough to make her give up.
“Learning to get through the beach break was really hard. I didn’t know how to duck-dive initially with one arm. That was a really long process of figuring that out, and just building up the strength and ability to do it,” she says.
“I remember competing in this QS event in Florianopolis in Brazil. It was a huge swell with a lot of closeouts – not your ideal competitive environment for anybody. Not only did I not make it out after the heat started, but all the girls in my heat didn’t make it out until a few minutes after the heat started. I think I adapted well in the sense that when I was struggling, I realised, so were other people. If anything, I had an extra strength in my mind.”
Kauai-born surf photographer Mike Coots– who lost his leg to a shark attack, and only learned to surf after the incident – became a mentor helping young Bethany to stay relent-less in her recovery. Some creative surf engineering helped too: like the crafty idea to put a handle in the centre of her boards. The addition of a simple silicon strap means she can grip the board and pull back to the surface when duck-diving, without being whomped in the face.
She says it’s also been heartening to see the WSL embrace rules that will help level the play-ing field for amputees.
“I can think of heats I lost due to paddle battles for waves. I’m really grateful that there are priority rules nowadays because it’s cool to be able to compete through surfing versus paddling,” she says.
“I know some people look at it differently. But I think it’s cool to allow the surfing and competitive strategy to allow for success.”
What’s next?
Early in 2020, after years dipping in and out of WSL competitions, Bethany announced she wanted to give qualifying for the Championship Tour one final, red-hot crack. The world was excited to see it happen; for Bethany to throw herself into competing full-time and raise the ceiling on what amputee surfers could be seen to achieve. But when COVID skittled the Tour that year and she ended up having another child, that ship apparently sailed.
“I’ve come to peace with letting it [qualifying] go for now,” she says. Competitive motivation comes in waves, but it tends to stay relentless. Tracks won’t be ruling Bethany out just yet.
