Elkerton Gary - Kong The Life and Times of a Surfing Legend

Kong was a larger-than-life character when I was a kid. Already a legend before he turned pro, and touted to win the World Amateurs in California in 84 (I just narrowly missed qualifying at twelve years old), I met him on the beach when he came up and asked me for a pretzel from the bag I was holding. He was larger than life and not even twenty years old. He didnt win that event but he went on to be one of Currens few real challengers and to hold the line with power surfing when our generation of aerialists and new-school surfers came along. Elko took it as his personal task to take on each of us and quiet the noise we were making. He himself would not go quietly, and we had numerous classic and personal battles between us. I beat him at Bells, he got me back at G-land the day my daughter was born! And there were a whole bunch between those. We ultimately hugged it out. Elko is an epic, legendary figure in pro surfing. Im glad its all in the past and I can enjoy the memories now! Ha, ha!

Kelly Slater

One perfect summers afternoon in 2000 on Frances Cte Basque, I emerged from Lafitenias surging shore break, walked a couple of steps, then staggered and fell to the sand. Id just won my first world professional surfing title the Masters. At last, I was World Champion. In my mind I would charge up the beach at this point with fists pumping jubilantly, embrace my inner circle of true supporters, fly through the media rounds on a wave of pure joy and then celebrate very long and very hard. I knew myself well. I knew what Id do in this peak moment. Or so I thought.

In fact, once I hit the beach the thousands of faces in front of me swirled psychedelically, the rumble of the surf fell weirdly silent and I was sweating profusely, despite the chilly breeze. Surely youre not gonna faint, for fucks sake! I remember trying to talk myself out of it but it was too late.

I was only on my knees for a few seconds, to all appearances immersed in triumph and relief. Athletes do this often enough after big wins in football, tennis and so on. A lovely moment, captured in a memorable photo and immortalised in Quiksilver promotions for the selling season.

But it wasnt a celebration, and it wasnt an expression of relief or of triumph.

Sports pundits reckon that being separated from a deserved Association of Surfing Professionals World Title by a mere couple waves, a few shitty judging calls and some plain bad luck not once but three times put a monkey on my back. They dont know the half of it. They really dont.

I collapsed because I finally felt the full weight of the one-tonne gorilla I had on my back not a monkey but a roaring, raging gorilla. I had no idea how heavy he was until I let him go. Until I saw that I was hanging onto him , not the other way around. Id been carrying the big bastard around since I was twelve years old, loving him and ignoring him equally, but always feeding him. And second-place finishes feed the beast like nothing else.

So, for those few moments on the sand, as I tearfully opened myself to the rawness of the days events, way more poured out of me than I was prepared for. Right then and there it became crystal clear that my marathon journey with the gorilla on my back had changed course forever. I no longer needed to keep thinking about him, living up to his legend in the water and out, or wrestling him kicking and screaming into the background.

I collected myself and sprang to my feet feeling free. This wasnt a finale it was a beginning. Not just to a career, but to life. I walked toward the approaching throng of wellwishers and beyond them into a brand-new and much improved relationship.

With a gorilla called Kong.

At the peak of my pro surfing career, in the heat of a man-on-man battle, I thrived on the fact that my opponents struggled to figure me out. To most of them I was a half-mad ball of pure aggression. They perceived my style of surfing and my personality were one and the same thing. While its true that I didnt go out of my way to be all cosy with my rivals on tour, I also didnt hide who I was.

Out of the water, the hard charging, big drinking and general debauchery that so characterised public coverage of my early career were simply who I was as a young man. I wasnt after any leadership role as a party animal, I just loved a good time and I was highly competitive. As things turned out, that combination proved a nice fit with my surfing style in the making of a reputation as a wild bastard. Of course, having a nickname like Kong and being a large chunk of a lad in a sport dominated by jockey types contributed to the persona.

Ill admit to being a bit indelicate with peoples feelings at times too. Okay, lots of times. But speaking ones mind without engaging a social etiquette filter isnt unusual. Theres no Swiss finishing school for young, uncouth arseholes where I come from.

I know its human nature to be curious about different people and Im happy that people have always looked on my surfing as being out of the ordinary. Great! Thats the objective of a pro surfers career, because successful surfers need to find a point of difference for themselves in the water. However, it took some time for me to accept that the world viewed me as being somewhat apart from the norm as a person too.

Aside from my surfing, Ive never deliberately tried to set myself apart Ive just always done things my own way. Not in a look at my radical hairdo and armful of tatts sense, but out of a deeply ingrained and strict self-reliance.

I hate imposed limits and regulations with a furious passion, yet Ive often fucked myself up trying to follow my own set of rigid rules. Maybe thats why I dont see myself as particularly out of the ordinary. I follow rules too, albeit not obvious ones.

Like most blokes finally do, Ive started to reflect more deeply on life now that it occurs to me that Ive got more yesterdays than tomorrows. I suppose that I am a little different and people can be forgiven for being curious about me. I also now realise that Ive actually been growing more conventional, more mainstream, since the day I was born. Yes, more . Which says a hell of a lot about my truly unusual childhood, one that I loved and considered totally normal.

After all, how many kids have their family home at sea on a prawn trawler?

Im glad my old man got out of prawn trawling before blokes whod get crook in the guts on the Manly ferry applied their prissy intellectual arrogance to ruining it as an iconic Aussie industry.

My dad lived on the Tasman and Coral seas at a time when people with good intentions but no idea whatsoever about prawn trawling were contenting themselves with smoking poor-quality dope in university toilets and protesting furiously over other matters about which they had no idea. Somewhere along the line we must have finally rid ourselves of every last war-mongering, animal-testing, tree-felling, V8-driving, burger-chewing, child-vaccinating, gene-manipulating, gun-toting, whale-spearing, imperialistic, materialistic, chauvinistic, homophobic, ozone-wrecking, carbon-belching bastard on earth. Because at some stage the humble, scraggy old Australian prawn trawlerman made it onto the shit-list of the anti-everything establishment. The do-gooders must have run out of other enemies.

Apparently, despite what veteran professionals observe with their own eyes every day, the whole Australian east coast prawn fishery is stuffed. It follows then that Australian prawn trawlermen need the guiding hand of politicians and academics, whove never trawled in their lives, to tell them how to care for their own livelihoods. Therefore all manner of restrictions, surveillance, electronic limitations and prohibitions regulate every aspect of a way of life which was once as free and as wild as the sea itself.