Surf Is Where You Find It (Revised and Expanded)

Buzzy trent in his prime, the premier example of the first generation of big-wave surfers. Photo: don James

After a long day of surfing great waves at Makaha, Wayne Santos and I were relaxing in the parking lot drinking a beer. A car pulled up next to us and out stepped Buzzy Trent. Buzzy was a hero to us, a “Man of Steel” when it came to surfing big waves. He, George Downing, Wally Froiseth, Woody Brown, Jim Fisher, and a few others pioneered big-wave riding—living and training for the giant winter surf, making it their lifestyle.

During the previous twenty years Buzzy seldom had missed a day of good big surf. On this day, although well into his forties, he was still built like a weight lifter, rippling with muscles that all had been earned from hard work and big water. Wayne and I were lounging on the fenders of our VW bug, but we stood to show our respect as Buzzy walked toward us.

“Hi Buzzy, yeah, they were great. We thought it was supposed to come up bigger, but a couple of ten footers was about it. Now it seems like it’s already backing off. Hey, can we offer you a beer?” I held out a bottle of Heineken.

“No thanks, it only takes one for me and I drop off the deep end, can’t do it anymore,” he declined. Then he added, “Used to do it all the time when I was your age, just make sure you don’t let drinking get in the way of your surfing: Anybody says he can surf drunk is a liar.”

“Yeah, back at Malibu we did a lot of drinking,” he continued. “But the waves were small and didn’t have the power like they do here. Try to surf Sunset when you’ve been drinking, and you’re going to lose. The ocean takes no prisoners, she will let you play with her up to a certain point, then you find out who the master really is.

“Back in ’51 we had a big day at Malibu, waves going all the way to the pier, pretty big surf for over there, but nothing compared to even today, right here. But that was a big thing back there, about as big as the place could hold. We lived for that stuff, loved it when it got big like that. There was this black boy named Nick used to come up and surf with us. He would drive up from Santa Monica with all his friends from school; they were all black and he was the only one of them that liked to surf.

Photo: John Severson

“He was in good shape, but he couldn’t surf worth a shit. That was OK because the waves were usually pretty small. He would get a ride and all his friends would be hooting and hollering, the girls screaming, jumping up and down. ‘There goes Nick, there goes Nick,’ they would yell. He was a very nice guy and came up every chance he could.

“He got this new board from Simmons on the big day, he was pretty proud of it. I thought it looked like a barge, but it was the first new board he ever had, so he was happy about it. I had been out all morning, so I was sitting in the Pit watching when Nick walked through, showed us his new board and paddled out.

“The pier at Malibu now is a new one; the old one was further north, closer to the wave. The old pilings are still there in the sand. Back then it was a big deal to ride a wave all the way to the pier; that was a long ride. But you had to pull out real fast at the end or you would run right into the pier.

“So Nick gets on this wave, he’s on the end, Bob Hogan is behind him, and I think Dick Jaeckle was behind Bob. It was a hell’uva wave and we’re all standing up watching. Nick’s friends were yelling, ‘There goes Nick, there goes Nick!’ They were pretty excited. The three of them rode the wave all the way across the Cove. Bob pulled out first, then Jaeckle got out but Nick kept going. His friends were still yelling, ‘Look at Nick go!’

“I could see he was getting close to the pier, but he didn’t pull off the wave, he just kept riding. I’ll be damned, but he rode right into the goddamn pier. And that was it, no more Nick. His friends were all crying now, ‘Nick’s gone, Nick’s gone.’

“And he was gone, we ran over there as fast as we could but he had sunk like a stone. We found his body a week later. I think he was trying to save that new board. I mean he could have just jumped off the back anytime and nothing would have happened, maybe swept through the pier and cut up by the barnacles, but he wouldn’t be dead. That just goes to show you, when it comes to the ocean, she’s always the boss and she takes no prisoners.”

With that admonition Buzzy bid us farewell, got in his car, and left. Wayne looked at me. “Jesus, that was some story.”

Buzzy would remain a hero for all time. He would ride his last wave at Waimea a few years later, saying it was one of the best waves he ever got. There’s a feeling at the end of a ride on a big, beautiful wave where the surfer does everything right. It feels like you’ve left this earth. Buzzy felt this many times in his life, earning for him an ocean-inspired humility.

As big, strong, and tough as he was, he always knew who the real master was. He believed the most important things to learn from big-wave riding were dignity and courage, values to carry beyond the surf.