Four South Africans stand out in the sport of big-wave surfing. Three pioneers and one young gun reveal a world that’s a lot tougher than you ever imagined.
It’s black down there. And eerily still. Black’s not a colour that one normally associates with surfing. Not even big-wave surfing. Blue… maybe green… or white when those multi-storey walls of water come crashing down.
For Chris Bertish, though, it’s black. He’s a kilometre off the Californian coast, held down 40ft beneath a freezing winter ocean that’s currently buckling and heaving as lines of huge waves – some reaching as high as 60ft – roll across the surface above him. No light reaches him down here.
This is Mavericks and Bertish is in the midst of a real-time nightmare at what is arguably the most dangerous spot in the world. Big-wave surfing is by its very nature dangerous, but even among the legendary breaks, Mavericks stands out as a killer. The best have died here… Mark Foo… Sion Milosky… all renowned big-wave exponents.
Each winter, created by the planet’s biggest storms, deep ocean swell travels thousands of kilometres at great speed, only to find its path suddenly blocked by an unusually shaped rock formation rising up from the sea bed. This causes the hunkered-down wave to suddenly square up and dissipate its energy on a huge slab of rock.
To sit in this impact zone, to paddle into one of these waves, to get to your feet and make the drop, bottom turn, and then scud along the face before pulling out earns you a special place among surfing’s big-wave elite. Get it wrong and you can end up where Bertish is now.
Fall at Mavericks in these conditions and one of two things can happen. One, you can be dragged underwater for around 58 seconds, travelling just under one kilometre toward the shore. Backwards. That’s almost twice as fast as Usain Bolt can run forwards. And while this all happens, you’ll be pummelled by thick, icy water that’s doing its level best to tear off your arms, legs and head. You’re trying hard to think of white fluffy clouds or whatever other happy oxygen-conserving place you go to calm your mind and heart rate. You’re also trying very hard not to think of the huge rocks all this water is about to throw you at.
That’s still preferable to option two though… which is what Bertish is currently experiencing. Instead of being hurtled toward the shore, he’s been sucked down the face of Mavericks’ wave-inducing rock outcrop. And he’s been sucked down with such force that it’s even pulled down his 9ft surfboard – one that usually has the buoyancy to stay on the surface no matter what breaks over it.
“It was like going over some kind of underwater waterfall,” recalls Bertish. “I just went down and down, and it got darker and darker. There was one thing going for me though… I was still attached to my leash.”
Read the full story in January's issue of The Red Bulletin.
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