“Surf contests need waves, good ones. When this happens, everything falls away but the surfing itself.”
I watched Teahupo’o from the back of my van last night, absent from my family home. An absence that was unforced but not unnecessary.
I parked in a clearing by a river in a treasured area of woodland. My own personal oasis where sunlit boughs of hazel shimmer and you are lulled to sleep by the final throes of water tumbling from the high glens, before merging into itself in the main river.
When I started this gig I would stay up all night to watch southern hemisphere comps then begin writing immediately. But that approach isn’t sustainable without whisky and cocaine, and those are not sustainable habits.
And so now I like to mull things over for an hour or four, to swish up the dirt, and when it settles to see it all the clearer.
This morning I ran into the woods. The air was thick with the leaden hum of insects among the stillness of the unbroken day. Chaffinches wittered to each other among Sitka Spruce and Douglas Fir.
I moved into the undulations of the trail, hips swerving, shoulders dipping, mind beginning to blaze.
Wild thoughts. Unhinged fantasies. Reveries dripping and begging among the sap oozing pines.
I thought about Teahupo’o. I thought about Chris Cote.
I thought about the juxtaposition of beauty and ugliness.
Rhododendrons thickened, clambering and choking everything around them. Their invasiveness offset by their prettiness, a cerise dreamscape masking the tangled, strangling roots.
Originally imported from Asia in days of Victorian decadence, today they’re everywhere in Scotland, spread through the countryside like a poisonous confetti.
And I thought about how often we fall for beautiful, dangerous things.
I ran through a stretch of trail that winds among an old stand of Scots Pine. Many of them were dying. Rhododendrons clawed at them. Ashen, bark-stripped trunks screamed into a listless sky.
I turned this last image over in my mind as I ran, shaping the words to describe it like clay. I was consumed by reverie, flitting through a fantasy of my own design, tumbling through the beauty of it all like an astronaut without a ship.
And then, reader, I fell.
My feet disappeared from under me, swiped by a wet root, and for a moment I was weightless, before hitting the ground with some force.
I felt it was significant, this return to ground. A sign. Momentarily stunned, I recognised the inevitably of falling when trapped in the pursuit of beautiful things.
Beauty is deadly. Yet we will always chase it. It’s nature’s kill switch.
And once you understand this, all that’s left to do is weigh up if it’s worth it.
Is momentary bliss, fraught with danger, an acceptable trade for safe but enduring mundanity?
Those surfers at The End Of The Road, flinging themselves into the maw surely believe the answer is yes. The reward for commitment to one of those waves can only be theorised by the likes of me.
Both Jake Marshall and Cole Houshmand claimed they had ridden the waves of their life today. Young men they may be, but this should not lessen their claim.
There could be few complaints from anyone at Teahupo’o, once again exemplifying the lesson that hardly bears repeating: surf contests need waves, good ones. When this happens, everything falls away but the surfing itself.
Half of the eight men’s elimination heats were decided by less than a point.
Approaches to the heaving Pacific tubes varied from finesse to flagrant recklessness. For examples of the latter see Ramzi Boukhiam’s 9.13 against Liam O’Brien, and Cole Houshmand’s 9.57, both of which saw the men escape foamballs like they were fleeing the darkest depths of their souls.
For the finesse, see Yago Dora’s victory over Jack Robinson, who will surely be stewing at not going further here. The heat might have gone either way, but Dora sealed it late by taking off deeper than anyone had attempted to this point and threading a noticeably longer tube.
Liam O’Brien was similarly stylish in losing to Boukhiam. The margin between the two just 0.12 points. It was hair splitting between two committed surfers, which never feels entirely just.
The most assured victory of the day went to Barron Mamiya in his win over Matt McGilivray. Mamiya looked as comfortable as you might expect a Hawaiian Pipe specialist to be, notching his 16.83 heat total with his first two waves in the opening minutes of the heat. His rhythm was palpable, despite citing nerves in his post-heat interview.
But the jist of the day was very much blissed out gratitude. There was a sense that everyone involved with this Tour was relieved to see good waves for once.
For some, they were beautiful waves.
And even if the pursuit of beauty is reckless, or consequential, or even if it’s only temporary, to hold it in your hand, just for a moment, is surely worth it.
