Kelly Slater - Pipe Dreams: A Surfers Journey

A secret spot with local friendsone of my first trips to an outer island in Hawaii.

Courtesy of Kelly Slater and the Slater Family Wall of Shame.

W HEN I AWOKE ON December 3, 1991, I already felt pretty good about myself. Nineteen years old and six months out of Cocoa Beach High School, I was in the quarterfinals of my very first Pipeline Masters. The surfing spot, known as Pipeline, has become surfings winter nucleus and is the epicenter of the surfing world. Its the ultimate arena. Swells from Alaskas Aleutian storms march through the Pacific and meet the Hawaiian Islands with open-ocean speed. As they near the shore, they focus on the reefs, which amplify their size and energy. Plenty of surf spots are longer, many are bigger, and some are even gnarlier, but Pipe, which sits midway along Oahus North Shore, offers the greatest ten seconds on Earth. It is the yardstick by which all other breaks are measured.

When I walked up to the beach at Pipe for the first time seven years earlier, I was blown away by how big the waves were and how close they break to the beach. Off to the right the waves are tiny, but the reef at Pipe has a way of funneling the brunt of the swell perfectly. About forty yards off the beach, waves that are two stories high explode over a few feet of water. Theres so much energy in these swells that if they didnt stack up on the reef and dissipate quickly, they would wash over the homes along the shore. Prior to the 1960s, Pipeline was considered too dangerous to surf, so the fact that I was even in the Pipeline Masters was unbelievable.

Since I was twelve, I had been coming to the North Shore during every Christmas vacation and watching the tail end of the Pipeline Masters. It was the big event in surfing. Organized by former world champion Fred Hemmings in 1971, it received national attention when ABCs Wide World of Sports covered it. Suddenly even people who didnt surf found it to be one of the most exciting events in the world. As a kid, Id watch the contest and think how glad I was not to be in the water. In Cocoa Beach, Florida, where I grew up and learned to surf, the waves near the shore were tiny ripples. I started just off the beach and dreamed of one day making it out far enough to catch the two-foot waves that my dad and my brother were riding. I thought anything beyond that was a pipe dream.

In Oahu on the final day of the 1991 Pipe Masters, I had the first heat of the morning. I had been hyped as a future world champion, so now that I was competing on the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour, all eyes were on me. It was a perfect tropical day, and I was the only rookie remaining in the contestso already I felt as if I had proven myself.

On the North Shore, the ocean needs some time in the morning to get organized. Before the trade winds kick in, the waves tend to have a kind of morning sickness. Pipe can be more perfect than anywhere, but in a bad mood, its scary. Surfers were calling the waves eight to twelve feet that day, but that number is deceptive. In Hawaii, height is measured by the back of a wavenot the faceso the scale is notoriously conservative. But height isnt the major issue. At Pipe, waves are just as thick as they are tall. They are dangerous enough without having to deal with wobbles and backwash, but I didnt have a choice. My heat began at nine sharp.

I was up against three AustraliansDamien Hardman, Simon Law, and Mike Rommelseand only two of us would advance to the semifinals that took place later that day. Halfway through the heat, I didnt have any good rides. In competition, the surfer who executes the most radical controlled maneuvers, with speed and style throughout, in the most critical part of the wave for the longest functional distance is deemed the winner. Of course wave size is definitely a factor as well. As I waited for a good wave, the commentators were announcing the judges scores from the beach. I was way behind.

A wave popped up, and the other guys were a little out of position. I didnt realize how heavy the wave would be; I only knew I had to catch it if I wanted to have any chance of advancing. I paddled into it, just as the backwash hit, and stood on my board as the wave jacked up. There isnt much time to think once youve committed to a wave like this; the slightest hesitation and all is lost. From the top of the wave, I dropped about fifeteen feet straight down. I barely stayed upright through the drop but somehow managed to redirect my momentum back up the face under the thickest pitching lip that came through all day. It was every bit as thick as it was tall, and the lip barely missed taking off my head. Inside the tube was the only safe place to be. Anywhere else and I would have been obliterated. There was no time to sit back and enjoy the ride. Once inside the tube, the hardest part was over. But I wasnt in the clear yet. I still had to navigate through the barrel without getting swallowed whole by this beast. I held on for all I was worth, knowing in the back of my mind that if I fell, Id only score a few points and the whole ride would be worthless. If I made it out, Id not only be on my way to advancing through the heat but Id prove to everyone that I belonged here. One second I was staring out of a massive cave swirling around me, and the next I came shooting out in a cloud of spray. I raised my arm in a victory salute for a split second before a cross chop separated me from my board. At that point, it didnt matter. I had made it! Up until that moment, I had spent my surfing career running from big waves, but making it through that one gave me the confidence to ride anything.

I still needed another decent score, so I started paddling back out to the lineup. I passed a water photographer on my way out, and I said, Wow, that was kind of heavy, huh? He laughed at my understatement and said, You dont know how heavy that was. I knew the wave was intense, but it wasnt until years later, watching it on video, that I realized how close I had come to getting seriously hurt. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I hadnt made it. If the lip had landed on me, it could have broken my back or even killed me. At the least, it would have sent me to the hospital.

I definitely got my moneys worth out of my ASP membership that year.

Courtesy of Kelly Slater and the Slater Family Wall of Shame.

I didnt start surfing because I expected it to be my career. It was something I just had a good time doing. But once I started, I couldnt stop. Nothing compared to the thrill of riding waves, having the friendships and the lifestyle. I couldnt have imagined that the magazines I studied from cover to cover would become a scrapbook for my friends and me or that heroes I never thought Id meet, let alone surf against, would eventually become my good friends. And I couldnt fathom that I would learn to thrive on the waves that scared me senseless.