FOREWORD

It was sometime in the summer of 2004. I had been invited on a boat trip to the Mentawai Islands with a stellar cast. Laird Hamilton was the leader of the pack; he was working on a movie project and invited a crew of people to join him for an adventure. For some reason I don’t remember I was arriving a day late for the trip, and I would have to jump on a different boat to catch up with the mother ship, which was already well on its way.

I landed in Padang late in the evening, was taken to a room to sleep, and was told that I would be woken up at 4:00 am to leave for the eight-hour boat ride to meet up with the crew. Sure enough, the phone rang at 4:00 am sharp, I grabbed my stuff and headed out. As I loaded my gear into our little boat I recognized a familiar face through the darkness. It was Gerry Lopez.

I have obviously known about Gerry Lopez for as long as I can remember. His poster held the prime spot on my wall directly across from my bed. He was the last image I saw before I closed my eyes at night and the first image I saw when I woke up. It was a beautiful poster of Gerry dropping in on a twelve-foot wave at the Banzai Pipeline. The sun glistening on the face of the wave. His board well positioned with his line set for what was destined to be something special. His style was flawless. So much poise. Even his hair blowing in the wind seemed surreal.

I remember staring at the poster and thinking that I would never ride a wave like that. I didn’t like big waves. I was scared of them and the sight of a wave like that made my stomach turn. But I was always mesmerized by this image for some reason. Other posters came and went, but this one was always treasured and protected.

When I hit my midteens, I began to make the yearly pilgrimage to the North Shore hoping to catch a few waves here and there. By now I had learned a lot more about Mr. Lopez. I had discovered old movies of him surfing all over the world. The most memorable of those being the waves he rode at the Pipeline and, of course, his adventures through the islands of Indonesia. I remember catching the occasional glimpse of him on the North Shore. He was a god to us, a messiah. The amount of respect Gerry received was amazing. He paddled out at the Pipeline a few times and it was always such a treat to watch him navigate his way through the lineup, sit and wait patiently for the wave he wanted, and then do what he does best: glide effortlessly down the face, slide into the tube, and get spit out the other end.

I had the opportunity to meet Gerry a few times here and there over the next few years, but it was never for more than a few minutes and it always seemed to happen in those overpopulated situations like surfer poll awards, trade shows, and the like. But no matter the situation, Gerry always made time for me. He looked me in the eye and listened. He connected with people, even if it was only for a brief moment. His demeanor was always so impressive even amongst such chaos.

Back on our boat in the Padang harbor we were all loaded up and headed out for our eight-hour ride with the sun starting to peak over the hills. Our boat wasn’t the biggest boat and there were only a few good seats on board. As the sun got higher in the sky and the wind started to blow, it became clear that the best and most comfortable seat on the boat was a bench seat that sat two at the front of the boat. So I took my seat and settled in. It wasn’t long before Gerry was sitting right next to me. For the next six hours I sat side by side with my hero. I asked him every question that I ever wanted to ask and then some. We covered just about his entire life from growing up in Hawai’i, the shortboard revolution, the early years at the Banzai Pipeline, the golden years at the Banzai Pipeline, the Uluwatu, Padang Padang years, the discovery of G-land, shaping and surfboard design, yoga, food, the power of the mind.…

Time flew by, and before we knew it we had pulled up to a perfect three- to four-foot reef pass with no one out. All of a sudden we were like two little kids scrambling to get our boards out of our bags. We each grabbed our favorite, waxed it up, and paddled out. I will never forget that session. The conditions were flawless, and wave after wave poured through the lineup. I remember one wave particularly well. It was a beautiful little four footer that was doubling up and bending around the reef. Gerry had just ridden the wave before me and was paddling back out. I slid straight into the tube and as I surfed I heard a hoot from the channel. It was right then that Gerry’s big grin came into view. I’ve gotten bigger and better tubes in my life, but that one wave will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Thank you Gerry for being you and inspiring generations of surfers to stay true to the real feeling of surfing.

Steve made the camera and I made the board; this first-of-itskind inside-the-tube photo was the result. Today anyone with a GoPro can have the same picture. Photo: Steve Wilkings

Gerry Lopez and I have been acquaintances since the 1970s. Over decades of proximity and mutual friends, a sense of familiarity and affection is created. As a surf magazine editor, it was my job to pay attention to him and what he did. Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of publishing his writings, beginning with “Attitude Dancing” for Surfer magazine in the mid-1970s, which became an anthem for the surfing of that period.

Observing Lopez from a distance: Even as a young, relatively immature surfer, Gerry Lopez had something special going on inside his brain that set him apart from the 1960s masses of teenaged gremmies, so aptly described by Phil Edwards as “legions of the stoked.” Gerry’s DNA is part Spanish-German newspaper-journalist father, part lifelong-teacher Japanese mother. Both parents read and wrote extensively. His sharp intellect is instinctual, with a Zen spin, inhabiting a slight frame that articulates a well-coordinated physical presence, one that somehow survives the seemingly impossible by dint of grace and savvy rather than brute power. He has none of the latter other than his mind force. However, it has been the awesome brute power of the ocean that provides the contrasting frame of reference in which he plays his game. There, Gerry operates glibly, with such panache amidst the mayhem that he has become a surfer icon, a living symbol for man surviving huge natural forces, exhibiting grace under pressure, in a game that has taken on much meaning for our society.

Along the road, for forty-some years’ worth, Lopez has proven himself a keen observer of human nature encountered while living through experiences quite extraordinary. In his later years, now grown even wiser and reflective though not yet shut down in his own physicality, Gerry has taken to writing more and more about what he has seen. His is a rare slice for us to have access to, worth sharing, well told, much like his style on a wave, reflecting his hereditary roots, wry and wily, carefully considered, perceptive and clever, drawing artful lines through life.