We live in strange and terrible times. Stranger and more terrible than just a week ago when they cancelled the Corona Piha Pro. I have it on good authority that the organisers and crew working it got to spend around an hour high fiving and enjoying the realisation that they had achieved what many thought they wouldn’t be able to. The temporary cell towers were up, the camera towers, a grandstand and a kind of VIP area in the car park at the South End. The fridges and food were here. Kelly was here. Womens world champ Carissa Moore was on her way. The beach and the surf were playing ball – the sand had formed with a nice steep bank into the water which had revealed a kind of mini viewing area. Then the whole thing got pulled, first in what has become a long line, but last Saturday somewhat cruelly, we got a taste of just how cool this event at Piha would have been.
The ‘fuck it lets party’ attitude of the night before was clearly going to go down in history. Details are scarce, but the sponsors product was beer and the guests had all just had a dream and a ton of hard work crushed and they were at the beach in a specially contructed facility. Shit got real.
But this is about the days after. The competitors for the junior event were already here. Kids from all over Aotearoa and the Surfing World. So the local boardriders club organised an impromptue contest and the kids got to surf in a competitive environment. There were tons of the surf community around, tents on the beach and some great waves. Surfing is the centre of attention. I don’t know any of this yet because I’m still trapped in the traffic chaos caused as workers trying to get the stuff they’d just got in back out clashed with the day-trippers wandering in blindly just to add to the shambles and opportunists like me thinking they’d score a few waves in the aftermath of all this. I wasn’t after a park, I just wanted to get a look at the waves, decide if it was worth it or not and then I’d be happy to park in the domain and walk over the bridge. I like walking through the punters on my way to the water. Beach superiority complex it’s probably called. But I saw a mate through the traffic, and after talking to him, decided to park where he was headed. Which was actually an important site in my family history; ‘Lion’s End’.
Nick had hired the old bach that my mums cousin Joan & her late husband Kieth had owned for years a couple of owners back, today it was being used as a beach base for a hoard of teenage surfers from all over NZ, even though the family home is actually a bit up the valley. We’d always stayed with Joan and Keith at their Piha baches. They had two over the course of my childhood. The other one they’d had was ‘Albert Hall’. If you know Piha, it’s the three story art deco thing with the round front that you can see if you’re looking straight out and up a little bit from the Piha store. Lion’s End is the little white place, last on the little finger of sand that points North from the South End. Yes, you’ve seen it in commercials.
I never stayed at Lions End, I was free of parents by then and staying down at the Surf Club at North Piha, a place with it’s own, let’s call it rich history. At the bach, when the creek got up during or after heavy rain, full of Gordon’s Gin and Rothmans, my dad would grab a lilo and run up to the bridge at the end of Glen Esk road in his speedos, jump into the swollen creek and float back down to Lions End where Mum and Aunty Joan and Keith were waiting for him to appear around the corner. Dad, understanding Maori concepts as he did, never hesitated when he got the chance to call Piha his turangawaewae. (Place to stand.) He’d been going there since he was a child, and his love for the place now surges through me, probably his greatest chromosomal gift to his son. Megan, my late sister, got married at Lions End. So you can tell, I’m having a pretty emotionally charged morning.
I roll through the grassy entrance into Lions End as Nick stands up from the little step made of bricks (New Lynn no doubt) and smiles welcome, just like the old man had done in the past. We just sit and hang. Talk about unfolding events. Concerned parents, thinkers, wondering what is to become of everything. But the energy of the kids is infectious, an unfortunate but acurate description. Even though they’re the first line of kids who are learning about disappointment the hardest possible way this past week. The surf just on the other side of Lion Rock is firing and it looks like there are a couple of the pros out. Professional surfers are often remarkably easy to spot, even if you haven’t got a clue what you’re looking at.
The surf’s a bit bigger at the North End than I can be bothered dealing with. And as it turns out, Nicks daughter Liv has a heat coming up in the competition that’s going on at the south end. I abandon my own surf to watch hers. I want to watch and support her, she’s the under 16 National Champ. Liv and her sister Jess are two of my favorite surfers. Mainly because over the last few years, as they’ve grown into it, I’ve had a few waves with along the way with them, the best of which of course are when everybody in the water should be at work or school. Being in the background watching their love and ability develop has been a joy to behold. They’re part of a super cool gang of Teenage Piha Surfer Girls, and I just dig being in the water at the same time as all of them. I held Jess’s hand when West Auckland Christian Surfers organised a paddle out at Piha after the Mosque attacks last year.
But it turns out Liv’s heat is delayed by like an hour and half. The surfs pretty flash, so me and Nick head back up and get our boards. I’m unlikely to get to see Liv surf because I have to be back over the Waitakeres to photograph Aldous Harding in the Town Hall at four. I mean seriously, what kind of great day in Tamaki Makaurau am I having !?
The easiest way out, which is the only option I ever consider, is to walk way down towards the beehive and paddle across rather than through the waves. This is made possible by the curve of the beach, and the deep channel dredged out by the rip. It’s an easy paddle and it feels good to be in the water. I’m relaxed and not really stressing about how many waves I get today, the water’s full of people, especially kids, and I’m just happy to be there. Actually getting few waves will be a bonus at this point. As it happens I do get a few, deciding to ride every wave I catch right to the beach and make use of that easy paddle out again. Paddling through some of the younger kids, I’m kind of pleased to discover that just because these nine and ten year olds are great little surfers sitting in the line up on Auckland’s fierce West Coast, they still talk the same complete shit city nine and ten year olds talk to each other when there are no adults around. Wave of the day for me was when, as a set wave approached and I was close enough to the right spot, able to turn and get into position to take off even if it was quite late, I heard a squeaky voice behind me as I started paddling; “Ohhh…go bro”. Rode a pretty nice wall all the way to the beach and got out of there.
The next day, on some kind of revival tour of our dating months, or romance tribute band , Pen and I went on our own Piha mission. We hadn’t been out there together for an age, and the place is no less enjoyable when you’re just walking it. We headed South first, and got to watch Liv smash a couple of lips at the South End. I talked myself up to Pen a bit about paddling out through keyhole in the middle of winter makes you feel extra alive, pointed out my favorite rips and rocks and then moseyed all the way up to the North End and back. We even took selfies. Bad ones. Had some kai on the beach and went back to Lion’s End to see Nick and the kids. I loved being out there with her. At my church.
The rest of the week should have gone the same way. I had my parking passes, I had organised to take people who were ‘surf curious’ out to the event, and I was planning on spending at least one night sitting around a tent, caravan or house playing my guitar. Maybe get a surf in. Definitely take a few gigabytes worth of photos.
Not to be. The week was spent watching the effects of Covid 19 get worse and worse, events and sports programmes, even society itself, crumbling all around us.
Meanwhile, Cyclone Gretel formed in the Coral Sea like Uesi did, but instead of dropping down into the Tasman and sending North West swell into The West Coast, she managed to squeak past Cape Reinga before veering South and pushed North East Swell into Northland. The wind was onshore all week but turned offshore, and began grooming the swell on Thursday morning. Pretty much as forecast. I aimed for Mangawhai a couple of hours after low tide in the hope that the sand movement during the storm surf of the previous few days had set up some nice banks. In particular the little right hander that can appear in the corner by the rocks that seperate the beach from the estuary.
Driving through Tomarata, the day was quite wintery. I was weirdly excited, all summer I’ve strangely missed those winter days where every thing is just a but harder, bleak and more rugged. Strange desires in these times. Careful what you wish for.
The rain had backed off by the time I got to the beach – the amount of utes and vans in the carpark worried me that every tradey for 50 miles had downed tools and crowded out the line up. I didn’t pay the beach much attention, my eye drawn immediately to the bar at the mouth of the estuary which was firing. Gretel’s swell hitting at the just right angle and even though it’s not my favorite place to surf, it was irresistible. I’ve had some lovely surfs out there. One dawn, years ago with some Mangawhai friends surfing perfect little waves in golden light as a short lived mini period of swell slowly died. That was the day I came to the conclusion that when you can, you really should wake up at the beach as I had that particularly beautiful morning. But the bar’s hard work. There’s either water rushing in, or out of the estuary. Or at its worst, a whole lot of water that’s not sure what it’s doing. When there’s surf, the water flows off the sand bank that’s causing the surf to break, so it’s a constant paddle to stay in position after a decent paddle out there in the first place. And if you get in the wrong place you get smashed, dragged away in a rip and in for a lot more paddling. It’s also really exposed to the South West offshore wind. But it is fun watching the odd goon in a boat get it wrong crossing the bar though. It staggers me how so many people who own boats really don’t have a clue how the ocean behaves once it has some energy moving through it. With all that in mind – being honest, if it had been a couple of feet bigger, I probably wouldn’t have bothered and headed around the corner to Waipu. Paddling sucks. Driving and walking are easy.
So I’m getting towards the end of what seems like a 300 metre paddle – it’s not but remember, paddling sucks – and there’s a bald dude that looks enough like Kelly Slater to make me think it’s Kelly Slater. And even though I know he’s been in the area and loves that Tara Iti golf course, a change of angle is enough to convince me it’s not Kelly, just the wishful thinking of an optimistic and imaginative mind. The bald dude pulls into a cranking left hander. Oh. It’s Kelly alright.
Whatever it is, seeing the best in the world do their thing exists on some other plane. The reality of being there is slightly unreal, fleeting, like you’re dreaming. You’re never really certain that you’re truly seeing it. The greatest surfer of all time shredding in the same waves you’re in. Making a pretty flash day on the Mangwhai Bar look more like Uluwatu as he fires down the line smashing the lip, throwing huge hacks and snaps and turns and spray that probably landed in Warkworth as rainfall. I’ve seen the best surfers in the world before, Joel Parkinson at Cloudbreak, a couple of contest heats at Pipeline and the Snapper Rocks pros on a big day. But this time, it’s the greatest ever, and I’m in the water with him. I paddle through the pack and over to Kelly. I have to. I tell him how stoked I am to see him out here, I say “Kia Ora”, then I tell him I’ll leave him alone and paddle off. He says something like “Cheers”. I get a few waves. Got smashed by one big right hander that went all wonky as it peaked, but it felt kind of cool going straight down on the nine footer. Get a nine foot board straight up and down vertical and you know it’s a decent sized wave. Even if the ride is only down it. Paddled over a breaking wave as Kelly took off right on my shoulder, I was a metre from Kelly getting to his feet and taking the drop, backhand, in that amazing familiar style of his that every surfer has admired for over 20 years and then watched him tear another one up all the way down the line. Kelly Slater on a wave with the Mangawhai dunes and forest as a backdrop. Surreal. But it gets better. Way better.
A set comes through and I’m well positioned, I turn and paddle into the wave. As I get to my feet and take the drop, I’m headed straight for Kelly. He’s kind of next in position, if I hadn’t taken the wave it was his. He looks right at me, I think he was pretty relieved to see that the dude in the ridiculous Hurley vest with the grey body and flouro orange arms could actually surf that long board and didn’t just run straight over him. Then shit gets wild. The greatest surfer of all time, (possibly thanks to the stupid wetsuit) seems to recognise that it’s the guy who paddled over and said “Kia Ora” an hour ago, and drops in behind me on the wave. He accelerates past me, loops around me, his intense gaze fixed on me the whole time like some kind of playful dolphin, he’s smiling, knows he’s making my day and probably quite a few years, he sprays water at me out of one of his turns and dissappears along the wave, into shore and probably back up to some luxury accomodation up by The Tara Iti golf course. Overwhelmed, I of course, fall off. No footage exists, I’ve drawn it for you.
The event gave everyone in the water permission to drop their guard and stop being so bloody cool in the water just because Kelly’s out. Everyone’s like ‘Wow’ and ‘Dude’ and ‘Amazing’ and really excited by it. Luckily, I managed to stay above the surface for the rest of the session because if I’d gone under, I may well have drowned as the water rushed in through the gaping smile I could not take off my face. It’s still there.
I acknowledge to a couple of guys that clearly they’d be the only people that would ever believe this story because they saw it happen. I paddle around across the estuary entrance, round the rocks into the beach and head home. I ring Pen. I have to tell someone. I text a few people I have to text. I manage to leave it off social media until I get home. Then Kelly was on the news up at Pataua with the kids, making their days.
What a magnificent human.
It’s testament to the great sport of surfing that a multiple world champion can even be bothered finding surf on a foreign coast in a strange land. Kelly’s nearly 50. He’s surfed for a job since he was like 16. He has nothing to prove, the professional circuit is taking a break like everything else so it’s not like he even needs to keep in shape or practise. He’s just out there because he loves it. (Sounds like a few people I know.) I love and respect him more now than I already did. The next dog, or perhaps a kitten, will be called Kelly. Another child at this point is an idea that simply can’t be entertained.
So a week after the cancellation of the event that would have had surfing on centre stage, that would have bought so much joy to those Piha kids I love being in the water with so much, where we would have seen the worlds best in our waves, I’m literally sharing a one with a legend among legends because of this awful, awful situation. One swell off one storm into one bay on one planet at one moment. I’m thankful to have been given such a positive surge. Almost guilty. We’re all going to need them, and there aren’t many around.
Without a doubt, the world that emerges after this is going to be a very different place. We just have to ride it. Be calm. Stay with the good energy. Don’t paddle against the rip. Do what the lifeguard says.
I know the one thing that will help me, and plenty of others through. And it’ll always be there. Thank you surfing.
Kia kaha all.
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