02/11/2020
From my new book: SURF, A Photographer's Journey. Call to or email to get your copy. 714.388.7213. [email protected]
This day pipe was big, dark, raining, and kinda sketchy. I swam out anyway to see what I could get. I saw only one other photographer out in the line up, Dean Wilmont, an Aussie photographer. We were both shooting with 100mm lenses, dodging north sets, and keeping and eye on each other.
We were thinking, is it too big to be out here? Is it dangerous big, or just holy s**t big? Then we saw Don King pop his head up in the lineup and we knew it was just “holy s**t” big because Don knew pipe better than anyone and he didn’t swim when it was “dangerous” big. So, that made us feel a little better.
When Don disappeared to go in, we starting thinking it was dangerous big.
All of a sudden the horizon went black and all the surfers vanished—not a good feeling when pipe is pumping. A giant north set was coming and the surfers were all scratching to get over the closeouts. From our angle— which was just a few inches off the water—all we could see was black. Everyone vanished.
Then, as if God opened up the clouds, a glimmer of light shone through all the chaos, lighting up an inside A-frame, as this Brazilian Surfer flipped around and took off.
Dean and I spotted him and we let the motor-drives fly. Then we dove to the reef and swam through the next three waves that all the surfers had scratched over. When we came up we looked at each other in amazement. What had just transpired?
This image made the cover of Surfer’s Journal Volume 9, Number Two.