The Dream

It is one of every young surfer’s dream to hit the North Shore, to surf the famous waves among the best surfers in the world and the heaviest locals in the world, and to some how dominate the situations that come to the fore. At some stage we all imagined ourselves paddling out at ten-foot Hawaiian Sunset Beach, saying g’day to John John and Makua, and lucking into a bomb that runs all the way through before unloading on the bowl for a wave of the day and the roars of the crowds.

Likewise many of us imagined arriving at the beach at Pipe, saying hello to Garret McNamara and Tamayo Perry before paddling out at Pipe on an eight-foot west swell, and sitting alongside Jamie O’Brien and comparing the sets to your local left beachie. Then a wave of the day comes through, slips past the locals and heads straight for you and everyone starts cheering you and shouting you in, and you have no chance but this one to make some sort of name in Hawaii and get the shot and possible fame and fortune and a professional career or at the very least a big wave charging free surfer career. So you paddle and you remember the words of advice given to you by your favourite surf website and you give two more really hard strokes before dropping to the bottom and assuming the perfect backhand grab rail stance, getting slotted off your face and bursting onto the shoulder in a flash of sunlight exploding off the drops of water sprayed into the air.  

The Reality

You’re not going to find any parking anywhere near Pipe during the season, and you’re going to have to park a mile away and make the hike across to the beach. On the way there you have a very good chance of bumping into Kala or any of his friends who are going to growl at you and snarl at you and possibly call you haole under their breaths or even straight to your face. When you get there, every single local surfer is going to stare at you and your totally unsuitable board and their stares are going to go right through your brain.

The first set is going to implode on the reef, and the ground is going to shake, scaring 4 different colours of shit out of you. A highly skilled Hawaiian professional surfer is going to wipe out while you’re watching your fest session ever at Pipe, and come in with claret spouting from his or her head and an arm that is bent so far out of place and backwards that it’s going to be a feat just understanding how close the arm is to being severed. The local lifeguards are going to have a look, do some quick treatment on the beach and relocate the dislocated shoulder and send that surfer home with a pat on the bum and a gentle admonishment to stop showing off. 

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The Outcome

Sunset. You’re not going to get a wave out there, with all the local surfers on the 9’0 pins catching every set from out there in the middle of the ocean. So you’re going to head in and lurk around the shoulder on the inside bowl and eventually you’re going to pressure yourself into one such bomb that everyone has left along and you’re going to find yourself flying through the air and getting body slammed into the bottom before getting pushed out into the channel and swept out to sea that the only way in is to put your head down and paddle for your might with the ignominy of not catching a single ridden wave, and you might even get a board to the throat in the Sunset shore-pound and find yourself even closer to death than you have been so far.

At Pipe you’re going to paddle out and watch people getting the best barrels of their lives from deep in the channel. You're going to get growled at whenever you look like you might paddle into the zone. When you eventually do, there is no way that you’re going to get a wave, as all the locals, including the bodyboarders, are in front of you in the queue, and they also look for the insiders that slip through. After 2 hours you eventually give up but you realise that you’re too scared to head over to Backdoor so you paddle over to Gums and surf with all the young girls in their bikinis and it’s not actually that bad at all.

The conclusion.

Hawaii is a scary place. Do not feel bad if you don’t become a hero straight away. Take baby step and only paddle out of you’re happy.

The Billabong Pipe Masters has a waiting period from December 8 – 20.