How fast can you move? With two hours notice this magazine was plunged into remotest Java with Shane Dorian and Benji Weatherley chasing as elusive righthand barrel. Two days after, we were in a chopper shooting Dorian on a golden surfboard for the cover of this very magazine. How good is that? Story by Sam McIntosh photos by D.Hump.
SATURDAY, March 12 2005: At one thirty on a Saturday afternoon.
I'm kicking around home with a hangover watching triple j's hottest 100 countdown on Channel [V], reading the papers and am about to dive into surf number two for the day. I get a call from my business partner, Derek Rielly, and tell him in an offhand kinda way about Ball-based photographer Dustin Humphrey's planned one-day strike on that right in Java. The gaping hole that Drew Courtney and Dylan Longbottom scored a few years back; the wave that spends most of Indo's swell season onshore. Hump had told me that the last time he stayed on the Big Island with Shane Dorian, Shane had pulled him aside and said he had three goals in life, One was to ride the biggest wave ever, the second was to win the Eddie and the third was ride this right in Indo. I tell Derek that I dropped hints about wanting to go on the trip but that Hump wasn't biting.
And this guy, Derek, he can be a piece of fucken work. A great friend, no question, but, man, can that motherfucker get lost on a power trip! If he wants you to do the banking today you do it, If he wants to send back the photos, you do it. If he feels there's another thing more valuable thing you should be doing with your time, hell let you know about it. No use arguing either, the kid's a remarkable debater and 18 months into this Stab partnership thing, I'm getting the hang of it. And, the dynamic works pretty good, I'm a world-class procrastinator and often find myself plunged into the no-confidence blues. Call Slater? Can't, too rattled. Call an advertiser? Can't, too rattled. It feels nice being nudged over the edge: being made to approach a girl, being sold on the advantages of sex with transsexuals while in Singapore, taking phone calls from those numbers you don't wanna touch and calling Kelly Slater and leaving messages (Kelly finally spoke to us-we're cool).
Today is one of those days, He hears the call about the one-day strike, knows the value of getting this right on with Doz, and orders me to call Hump. His own battle with a raging syphilis means he cannot fly at short notice and without appropriate clearance from medical authorities, I explain that Dorian and Benji are already en route and that I'll never get a flight to arrive in Jakarta that night. The outcome is typical. He shoots my argument outta the sky, he rattles off a variety of airlines, the value of the story and the most telling point is an old favourite where he explains how it's this spontaneous once-in-a-lifetime gear that makes for a fulfilling life,
Ninety minutes later, I'm in the Qantas queue bound for Jakarta. A kid with a stack of Surf Tech boards with Shane Dorian written on 'em waits sweating to pass on the cargo, Twenty minutes before the flight's supposed to take off, Dorian and Benji arrive with video dude Dave Emge.
Doz grabs and packs his new sticks, slaps his passport onto the counter (yep, it reads Patrick Shane Dorian) and stresses the importance of getting boards for the evil right. Turns out Doz is yet to break a Surf Tech board. I nod keenly, like the pro surfer sycophant I am, and talk up his Surf Techs even though all I've ever believed is that they're beginner K-Mart boards.
Sitting on the plane, Emge stops on the way back from the toilets and asks if I've got the new mag. I stumble, try to make an excuse and then quickly try to catalogue the content of the latest issue to make sure there's no Dorian/Weatherley grenades inside. I'm pretty sure this issue's clean and hand one across. You never know what a pro surfer is gonna get offended by but sitting a few rows north in the plane, think I'm sweet.
The plane lands, we meet Hump, and the next stages are your typical pro surfer trip crap: the gnawing of KFC bones, a three-hour transit down to the coast, iPod insertion and the obligatory pro-surfer-my-a/c-isn't-working-we-need-to-change-rooms conundrum.
Next Day. Sunday. March 13, 2005.
Dorian's up and at 'em after four hours of sleep.
"You shoulda seen this guy," Benji confides. "He's up at four in the morning, two hours before light, waxing boards, shaving his chest, shitting from every orifice. I'm like, 'Shane, c'mon man, it's the middle of the night!'"
This is a one-day shot at success. On Monday, there won't be enough swell and tonight Benji will board a flight back to West Oz for the Margs contest, His new sponno Salomon has hooked him up a wildcard and he has to be there, We approach an ex-parasailing boat complete with flat landing pad on the back. "Dude, how's the sun deck on the back," says Doz. "I'm gonna get a great all-over bronze."
The two-hour boat ride out to the islands is filled with promise. Both Dorian and Benji reminisce about how they were sitting at the Surfer Poll awards a few years back when they saw the video of Drew Courtney threading a 15-second pit at the right that won tube of the year (you might remember the photos from an old issue of Underground Sun). Right there, the pair made a pact to get the wave on. Dorian reckons that the wave's so perfect he could stand up, mask his eyes with his hand, hold his line and ride the tube blind. He romanticises standing tall in an eight-to-10-foot tube after being slaughtered on the reef. "Imagine, blood pouring from your chest and stomach and standing in the tube of your life going ARRRGGGHHH!"
He laughs, then thinks about it. He's not joking. Benji doesn't hold the same sadistic desires and romanticises about whacking off in the tube. In person, Benji's humour packs more punch than in the Drive Thru videos. Still, Doz ain't laughing. And he sits there all September Sessions-pout and dreams about being cut up.
Both Doz and D.Hump invited Kelly Slater on this trip. Kelly rang Hump firing questions down the line. He fired and fired and fired and the brunt of the pressure from the champ was too much for Hump to bear. Hump reluctantly explained that the winds were good but this wave is a long shot. A real long shot. Kelly aborted because he thought there was a swell headed to the Superbank. Doz and Benji joke about hanging around for two-foot Snapper as opposed to stand-up barrels and pose the question that it may be the most crowded wave in the world and how you can surf for three ' hours and catch too waves. Dorian then explains a day when he caught, every lump that moved at Snapper; "I was super pissed. I don't know why I was angry but I was out there and surfing like such a dickhead. I was yelling people off, dropping in, I must've caught 100 waves. And no one says a word! It's like accepted behaviour. Then this big guy flares up at me. I just puffed up and held my ground and he backed off," says Doz, kinda laughing, kinda tough talking, "I shoulda got falsed already." Falsed is Hawaiian talk. It means, "to be beaten up,"
When we arrive at the islands, Shane's on the bow looking for whitewash and indicators. We roll up at a recognised break and the swell's two foot at best. Spirits are low. The open ocean swells we climbed on the ride over from Java aren't translating into waves. Hump doesn't say much. Dorian blames the tide. "The tide's everything in Indo," he says. "The tide drags in the swell, it's like Deserts and waves like that. At high tide it's not breaking, when the tide drops you can be getting stand-up barrels."
Benji and Doz climb a tree and for the next two hours watch every wave that breaks. There's nothing else to do but wait for the tide and up this palm tree it's Big Brother uncut: they talk women, talk tour, talk zero regret, talk Kelly, talk Andy, talk Bruce, talkTaj, talk Mick, talk Koby, talk big waves, talk money, talk stocks, fuck, all that good stuff that gets coughed up when you're not packing a waterproof digi recorder. The recorder would have surely settled the conversation down but it was glorious to hear these topics tackled with honesty. And, as you read this now, I apologise profusely that I can't accurately pass it on. Sorry squared.
As we struggle to get back across the few hundred metres of reef I back to deep water, Doz lays into a wave on his stomach and shimmies out across the reef and to safety. I lay down, scratch up my guts, get back to my feet and can't figure how he's done it. Nor can Benji. The reef goes dry and there's a tiny crevice he'd taken through the reef to deep water. Insert gush about incredible waterman skills here.
We paddle out and surf for four hours. The smaller ones are about three to four. Benji takes a couple but generally leaves 'em untouched. Doz only wants the five footers (I'll get to the size). The boys aren't super frothing or anything but realise any freak bump or kick in the swell could give 'em what they wanted: stand-up caves. However, for me or any of my friends, and I'd presume you too, I'd struggle to describe more fun conditions. I'm talking ' deep water with no threat of hitting the reef, down-the-line rights that allow you to hack, float, smack the lip or ride high in the almond-shaped barrels. You know those kind of waves where you take a high line, gather your speed -. and come up and around a section? Yeah? It was like that. Y'know when you're going so fast you're doing lots of those tiny little excited bottom turns for every top turn?
If the wave wasn't a prize five-footer, Dorian would give the nod and you'd go. "I'll sit here all day getting sunburnt without food if it means I get one of those waves out here," he says.
At 4:15, we head back to Java so Benji can make his flight. The Bintang flows. And lubes the conversation. "Should have gotten enough for Billabong to accept my receipts, eh Dustin?" Dorian asks photog Hump. Between Dorian's Pod playing James Taylor's Mexico and Benji's Pod pumping out The Faint, the boys talk magazines and content, Benji talks about ESPN magazine and how surfing needs to follow the lead of fashion mags. Doz, on the other hand, just talks about Stab's cartoons, I brace myself. After the angry response from his best friend Kelly Slater over the cartoon in issue one, prepare for another onslaught. This time is far more pleasant however. Doz tells me how good the Occy cartoon is and how accurate the drawings of him are. He then moves onto who we should do next,
"You've got to do Sunny. You've got to do him when he was all fat, And you've got to do it when he crashed his Camaro and just left it!"
Doz continues: "And you've got to do Andy imagine all the scenes of him snapping. Oh, you could do the best caricature on Mick Fanning.
At the airport, Doz calls Riz (Rizal Tandjung), calls Andy, calls Kelly, calls Bruce. He drops the news on each of 'em about the surf and whacks a price tag on the previous day's size: "some five footers." If it weren't for this official line, I would've called the surf three feet to play it cool, It feels good, We land at Denpasar and head straight to the beach, Dorian's out to get clips for the new Taylor Steele film Campaign II out later in the year.
Imagine how good he'd look. Imagine his tiny little forehead. I was cutting his hair on a boat trip once and his hair grows out of his forehead. His forehead is an inch big! Who else is there? Oh, you could do Luke Egan: The richest surfer ever. He's made some smart decisions. Ah, he might be too sensitive. Have you done Kelly? You've got to do Kelly!"
'Ah, we did Kelly in the first issue," I say, reluctantly. "I don't think he liked it too much, We had some stuff about Pam in there, All the facts were outta his book but in hindsight I guess it's like doing the Koran in a cartoon."
The boat stops for a piss break. Benji stands out back for a while before saying we're good to go. Five minutes later and he needs to go again. We stop again and wait for him to empty his weak bladder. Two stops, no drops. Stop three and he orders us to ignore him and talk and do our thing, Finally, there's a yellow result,
Benji makes his flight back to Australia having spent just 24 hours in the Republic of Indonesia. We check into the Sheraton.
'Every video my section gets better but I get more and more picky. I don't want to have any semi waves, My section's complete but I'm just trying to replace waves now," he says, doing his trademark wait for the best waves.
Tuesday. March 15, 2005.
A Gold Board, The Chopper and Page One.
When you're a high-profile player on tour, you can do the 'CTs, do Hawaii, maybe a Mentawais boat trip in June and there's all the photos you need. But when you're a paid freesurfer, exposure matters. Since he's quit the tour and taken the life of a vagrant chasing waves, there's no place Doz needs to be (yeah, his chick's mellow on him - right now she's posted up at Dec's new crib overlooking the Superbank and she's cool). Two days in Bali is easy.
On paper, Doz's life is about as close to luxury as any man could have. (Check the list next door and see why) So, why not ride a gold board and get shot for the cover? $US1100 bought us the chopper for an hour. We lost eight minutes travelling to and from Denpasar airport, lost a few minutes for photog-Hump to land but we got 40 minutes of Doz doing his thing just down the beach from where Andy and Bruce had their magic tow session last year (see Stab issue four),
Session nailed, we fly back to Jakarta and post up at a bar and drink the on-tap Heineken. Doz rings his girl back on the Goldie, says hell be home soon. At the bar he talks money, talks careers, talks patriotism and his favourite type of girls, "I can't do white chicks," he says, leaning toward the more colourful girls of the rainbow. This intrigues me, a confirmed lover of white flesh despite the odd foray into other cultures.
So, I pose the question: Assuming you're single, you're sitting in the Chateau Marmont in LA, dressed up in your Ralph Lauren purple label suit, your Pradas on the hooves and Kirsten Dunst walks in, what are you gonna do?
"Man, I wouldn't look twice at her. Are you kiddin' me!"
Halle Berry, I suggest?
"Now, you're talking, This is better," he says.
So, define luxury? What's luxury? I say, making an extremely tenuous link between this trip and the theme of this issue.
"There are different things that make your heart beat," he says. "But when someone's spent all that money on a chopper and you're out there, heart beating through your chest, with that small window it's whole purpose is to shoot you, that's pretty fricken luxurious."
THE TEN LUXURIES OF SHANE
- MY VEKY EXISTENCE. I have absolute freedom in my life right now. I make every last decision myself. I don't have to be anywhere at any time. If I'm checking the net, see a swell, I can make a call and go. My goal is to leave myself open to opportunity. If I'm in Fiji or Samoa and see a swell hitting Tahiti, then I'm gonna bolt. Barbados, Indo or whatever.
- QUITTING THE TOUR. It was the strangest thing, the moment I'd quit. I'm oblivious to who's on the tour. I wouldn't know whether Mick Campbell is in, I wouldn't know who's out. When you're on it you think it's so important but it's such a luxury and a relief to not have that constant week after week, month after month monotony. The tour is what it is and every last contest on the earth is the same. It never was my bread and butter and it was just a little part of my whole deal, I've never for a second regretted my move.
- THE BILLY'S PLANE. If I was on the tour right now with the Billabong plane set up I'd be pulling my hair out. I'm slated as one of the main men with the plane. Can you imagine driving a World War Two plane around the ocean looking for monster waves, launching jetskis from the wings and sliding the zodiac from the tailgate. The plane has the exact theory as my life. To ride the biggest wave ever ridden. Fuel up and fly out. I can't wait.
- MY WARDROBE. I love buying expensive, classic pieces. Some guys are into cars and spending money on other things but nothing's better than taking a girl on the town spiffed up in a tailored suit. I've got three Ralph Lauren purple label suits. These babies are rare. Every inch of my body was measured up in New York, then the measurements sent to Britain and I selected the materials. It's not something you need, but when I put on my Prada shoes it feels like an investment. I'm not into loafers or green or purple crocodile skin, I'm after classics.
- BOOST PHONE. A free worldwide cell phone is fantastic. I don't even use the home phone anymore. It's my connection to the world. Andy, Bruce, Kelly and I are all sponsored. Each time one of us gets waves we're all over the phones. Last year Andy and Kelly both called (separate calls) and told me they were towing into six-to-eight-foot Kirra getting standups. I was in Morocco freaking about my waves, my voice was coarse from screaming my head off. Lately, Kelly calls when he has a session he knows I'd be jealous of. He especially enjoyed calling me the other day telling me about six-to-eight-foot Barbados he scored because he'd invited me and I turned it down.
- BUYING LIGHT SURFBOARDS. When I arrived on the Gold Coast I paid $1100 for three boards from a high-profile shaper. They were light, real light, man, but that was the problem. After three surfs, they were all broken. One creased in four places doing a cutback on a mushy two-foot wave. Three boards and collectively I wouldn't have caught more than 20 or 30 waves.
- GOOD GRINDS. My wife and I eat like royalty. When we go out we have amazing dinners. I don't mind spending a bunch of dough on treating myself right. We have an amazing kitchen with a million cookbooks. In the mornings we pick a cookbook, open a random page, buy the ingredients and cook that dish. When I was a kid my mum and dad had a fine food restaurant and I think that's what inspired me. If I was super rich, the first thing I'd get would be a chef.
- I LOVE MAKING DECISIONS WITH CONVICTION. With age comes experience and intelligence. Now I see things more rationally rarer than making decisions strictly on emotions. It's better to make decisions out of love than fear. If I didn't totally dig a girl I was with, I broke it off. I once broke up with a girl because I knew we had to be apart to be together. Three years later, we got back together. Eleven months later, she was my wife,
- SPEAKING OF WHICH, there's too many good things about my wife to call her a luxury. She has my best interests in mind. I'll see her for a day after a month away and a swell will come up and even though she'll miss me, she'll encourage me to go because it's my job. Not many people truly love what they're doing and she sees it in me. I don't know a single woman in the world that would be like that.
- WAITING FOR BOMBS. I'm sure it stems from surfing contests and constraints and having to catch waves but I'll sit there all day to get a good wave. I'll go without food or sunscreen to get the wave of the day. It's about quality not quantity. One crazy wave is better than 25 good ones. Those are the ones we remember.
Posts: 5
Reply #5 on : Tue September 02, 2008, 07:43:53