Surfers are probably going to think “What a kook” for writing this; frothing and foaming about something that for a lot of people, is quite standard. But for many, many more people, it’s not standard at all. And besides, the Piha Bar is legendary. Not the least because it’s not always there.
Where, why, when and how waves break depends on many factors. The intensity and position of the storm generating the swell, the direction of the wind when it finally reaches shore and the contour of the ocean floor when the wave can’t contain it’s energy any more, it’s top overtakes it’s bottom and it breaks. That ocean floor contour is what the Piha Bar is; the sand.
The sand moves. Some times favourably. Sometimes not. For a long time at Piha the sand has been in the ‘not’ part of the beach. There’s been surfable waves, but not ‘The Bar’. When the sand moves it can be in relation to human activity, shifting the sand to where the humans think it should be, which is quite localised and a bit out of order, and then of course the ocean moves the sand as well. Sand movement on the west coast has the whole coast as it’s pallet, from Taranaki north. It’s quite difficult to control, so obviously humans should just leave it alone but they can’t help themselves.
So the sand moves around, and things come and go. Hundreds of Auckland surfers of my generation would have learned to surf at Piha in The Ditch. It was a mini-wave that reformed after bigger waves had broken out the back, it kind of shaped up and then got quite fast, breaking right, in behind Patiki Rock before dropping you in the rip for an easy ride back back out. I remember my dad pushing me into waves on my red Graeme Allen Supersession swallow tail with the cool stinger. The beach is a completely different shape than it was then. There is no ditch. But The Bar has returned.
According to The Piha Surf School website, The Bar vanished in the mid nineties thanks to the human activity moving the sand around on the beach. Maybe. Maybe not. Whatever the reason, it went away. Humans moving the sand probably didn’t help – but there are far bigger forces at play. The sand constantly moves, immense amounts of it.
But the bar is back and that’s all that matters and why I’m foaming so much. I got to surf it the other day and it was awesome on a handful of levels.
I’m an OK surfer. I have a measurement where sometimes think I’m like in the top 20% of who’s in the water, depending who’s out of course. Surfing some places I drop out of the top 20 and sometimes I move up into the top 10. Te Arai the other day, definitely top 5%. That was awesome. Fit, heaps of time in the water and surfing quite well. (While all the real hotties are working on a Wednesday or further up north at The Ruakaka race track which must have been insane). Paddle out to Tea Tree Point at Noosa, and I’m dropping right back and lucky to make the top 50%.
I think it’s important to establish where you are in the pecking order, just so you know and can hold yourself to account. Surfing’s relaxing sure, but too relaxed and you won’t catch shit. I’ve had days where I’ve sat and let everyone else take good waves and watched them kook it when I’m actually the better surfer. I don’t do that anymore, I find out where I stand and hold my position. And just because some dude looks the part with his haircut and wetsuit – that means nothing until he’s caught a wave and shown he has the goods. Many in the line-up rocking the exact right look have just paddled out for the first or second time on holidays here from Ireland. Conversely, the slightly overweight fulla in the black footy shorts the on dinged up board on one of the Raglan points is highly likely to be a total shredder. All that aside, the famous quote from the father of surfing, Duke Kahanamoko is that “the best surfer out there is the one having the most fun”. So it could be anyone.
But back to the Bar. Man. That was fun. It wasn’t that big this day, but it was exciting. Surfers measure waves from the back, being half the height of the face of the wave (the bit you’re riding). I have no idea why this is, it’s just so. Swell height rather than wave height maybe. If it’s called 4 foot, it’s 8 feet up the front. And it’s feet too. No idea why that is either. I like surfing for being so resistant to something that changed for every other sport that measures something ages ago. It’s not a metre, it’s 3 feet-ish. Rugby could have been as staunch about the 25 yeard line becoming 22 metres, but it wasn’t.
So we’re in the 2 – 3, maybe 4 foot range. The bigger waves are definitely overhead. I’m a natural footer (left foot forward) so the bar is a backhand wave for me. Always. It’s a left.
So what happens on the bar? This is the exciting bit and why I’m all afroth.
First, it’s a remarkably beautiful place to just be. The water’s emerald green with the early morning sun just getting over the Waitakere Ranges, The Nun Rock & and Taitomo Island rising volcanic, black and vertical out of the water while the kelp sways on the surface. The foam hissing as it boils.
The waves generally roll into Piha from the South West, so they wrap around these rocks at the South end and into the bay. At this point, the bar is working best at low tide. The relatively small swell able to break because there’s effectively less water – everything is basically more acute at low tide. When you see a wave tubing, creating the barrel that surfers crave – that’s because among other things, the water is really shallow. Yes, it’s dangerous. You can get smashed.
The wave wraps around, gathering speed as it comes out of the deeper water, but before it ends it’s journey of perhaps thousands of miles and hits the bar, it gets smacked into by the backwash that’s coming off the rocks from any previous waves. That’s quite exciting, because the extra water gets injected into the wave and the size and intensity of the thing can literally double.
At this point, you’re looking to take off. If you’re the Alpha surfer, you’re right on the rocks, literally within a metre or two. Maybe even actually behind them around the corner a bit. Mr top 2 % will get first pick of the set. Ancient law decrees that the surfer closer to the shoulder, where the wave is steeper and breaking, has right of way. If you’re learning to surf or thinking of learning to surf, read that sentence again. It’s the one fucking rule – but not enough people seem to know it. In some parts of the world dropping in, as this is called, can get you stabbed in the car park.
So he gets his wave and everyone else backs off, it’s his. You wait for the next one, water’s moving everywhere and we’re all trying to get into position. It’s noisy. Splashing and sloshing, a lot is happening in terms of energy and movement in the water. We’re 10-15 feet from the kelp and the rocks. And position matters, because that backwash, if you’re not in the right spot, pushes you back up the wave. That will stop you getting into the wave as the water rushes upwards. Which at best is just fustrating, or at worst, it can send you over the falls. Which is horrible. That’s when you get forced into the wrong position and your timing gets all screwed up, too late to take off properly, you’re pitched over with the lip of the wave, tons of water and you flying through air. Not pretty. Especially not out here.
Because, when you catch one, as soon as you get to your feet you notice, that apart from a couple of other surfers to avoid, there’s this big kelp covered rock looking up at you. The kelp looks soft, but you know, rock.
But it’s OK you’re on your feet now. “Up and riding” they’d say on the loudspeaker if it was a contest. I ride a 9’2” single fin longboard. Designed and shaped by Wayne Parkes, who was New Zealand’s top surfer in the late 60’s. He had a shop in Barry’s Point Road, Takapuna until just a few years ago. It’s a beautiful board, even yellowing and dinged up, black sand in the wax it’s vintage on display for all to see, people still stop me on the beach and comment on it’s beauty. It was probably a 30 year old design when I bought it around 20 years ago. One of the things I love about it is that right now, sliding along a wave on the Piha Bar is, that it feels like it’s where it was designed to be. I’m pretty sure this is the case. I’d love to ask Wayne. He was ripping the Piha Bar in his prime, he must have designed his boards to enable that.
Up and riding, haven’t hit anybody, and managed to avoid the kelp covered rock. The first one anyway. So I cut back towards the breaking wave to get closer to the energy. That means I’m changing direction, to get back to where the wave is actually breaking, when I’m there, I’m going to turn again and resume my original course with a bit more power having gotten back to that energy and the steeper part of the wave. The longboard with one big fin doesn’t turn anywhere near as sharply as a shorter board with 3, 4 or 5 fins. You tend to do fewer, bigger turns. If I looked over my right shoulder now, I’d probably see some dudes paddling out through the cave. It’s an entry move that’s a little over-baked for today if you ask me. The cave is much more useful when it’s big. But everyone’s different with their level of acceptable paddling to walking ratios. Which is why I generally surf South Piha on a higher tide. You can get your car closer to the water. That big walk from the carpark at KareKare? No way.
The cave also always brings to mind my lifeguard friend Peter Varey, once awarded rescue of the year for swimming a patient back into the cave in a giant swell. Legend has it, when the cave filled with water they were touching the roof.
If I had taken a look over my shoulder at the guys paddling out throught the cave, I possibly wouldn’t have noticed that the wave is fattening up, slowing down in deeper water and that I’m going to have to do something or I’ll be stuck there where I don’t particularly want to be, remember: rocks. So I generate bit more power with another turn and move towards the front of the board, shifting my weight a bit to aid momentum.
My knees are bent. I am attempting to appear relaxed and cool. It’s kind of a slacker style I favour. I’m never sure if I’m pulling it off or not. But nobody points and laughs so I figure I’m OK. I lean a little into another turn so I can drift up to the top of the wave, I’m going to need to put some speed in the bank for the next bit. From here, I can speed up when I need too just by angling back down the wave. Also, being at the top of the wave has increased the distance between me and that other bunch of kelp covered rocks. They must be a good 6-7 feet away, that is, at the bottom of the wave.
Here comes the third, final and maybe the best section of the wave. And look, another rock. This one’s big enough to have a name probably, but I don’t know it. When the wave gets here it gets real good, once you’ve dealt with the rock. There are a few people sitting on the corner, hoping that the surfers coming through like me are going to either pull out and return outside from whence they came via the shorter paddle, or try some kind of stunt and wipe out, so that opportunistically, they can get on to this final inside tasty section of the wave and make it their own.
I drop down the wave, generate some speed and for some reason, surf really close to the rock. I could have put my hand out and touched it, or perhaps even, slipped or stumbled and smashed my face into the thing. I still don’t know why I did that. I’m not a risk taker. But I think it’s related to summer evenings skateboarding, throwing a few turns down the Ponsonby road footpath on The Sector 9, where the excitement pretty much comes from avoiding pedestrians.
I’m inside now and although the wave has lost some of its size, it’s gotten really steep and fast. I angle the board to pretty much just trim in a straight line along the wave. Rising and falling a little. Wayne’s design is going really fast now. I bend my knees a little to really feel the speed, if I was a frame in a comic book there’d be, in hand drawn capital italics, ‘WOOSH’. The wave decides it’s had enough, loses it’s desire to break with any kind of form and smashes itself, my board and I into the hero of my story – The Piha Bar, and I’m completely stoked about it.
“Stoked” is a surfer’s word that leapt into mainstream use years ago. Days like this, you understand it’s true meaning. I’m still completely ablaze from the stoking I’ve got this day and others lately. (Which by now, is probably quite evident.)
I breathe, standing in the shallow water, shake myself off and start paddling back out.
When I get to the rock on the corner , a couple of surfer girl tourists actually comment on how close I went. I think they were impressed. The fact that a couple of surfer girls spoke to me on account of something I did on my surfboard will remain forever with me. My work here is done. It’s never going to get any better than this, that kind of thing. “It’s an exciting place to surf ” I said back.
I wondered if I could somehow write it down and describe that excitement for a non surfer. I promise myself I’ll try. I also promise myself I’d go closer to the rock the next time. Thanks Piha Bar. We love you. Please stay a while longer.
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