THE REAL BIG WAVE DAVE
By: Steve Boehne

I hadn't planned on going to Hawaii the winter of 1988 because we had just moved into our new Dana Point store that October. I was exhausted from a solid three months of moving in and setting up displays and surfboard racks. Three of my surfing buddies, Don Dusatko, Dave Price and Larry Cobb stopped at the last minute to invite me to join them on their surf trip to the North Shore. They had rented one of Mark Foo's condos near Wiamea Bay and I couldn't say no. None of the guys had surfed Hawaii before and I think they especially wanted me along to show them the ropes. Barrie and I first went to Hawaii in 1969 so I had experienced 19 years in the big, scary, powerful Hawaiian surf. Don was a competitive hangglider plus an excellent snow skier, windsurfer and surfer. Larry was an experienced surfer and later became my lead surfboard shaper. Dave was an aerospace engineer and mathematician. He wasn't particularly athletic and had a physique like Elmer Fud, but he loved surfing as much as anyone I knew. I had recently shaped Dave a beautiful 10-ft. gun for his first North Shore assult. Larry, Don and I just brought our regular 9' single fins.

Our first morning on the North Shore we drove over to Sunset Beach, it was a stunning, bright, sunny day with perfect twelve-foot surf. I showed the guys Val’s reef, a shallow, sharp corral reef next to the paddle out area and in front of old Val Valentine’s house. I explained how if you had to swim into the beach that you must not come in over that reef, but you had to let the rip current take you past it and then swim like hell to hit the beach. If you missed the beach, you would be caught in the notorious rip current that flows like a river straight out to sea.

When we paddled out I recognized a few of the guys I had met previously in the line up. They were: Peter Cole, the 50’s and 60’s big wave surf legend and buddy of Pete Peterson, Philipe Pomar The Peruvian champion, Fur Cat a 70’s HB local and Bobby Allen the old Brotherhood Glass shop laminator.
A brief digression about Bobby, he had a few loose screws. He used to smoke cigarettes in the laminating room and throw the lit butts into an open acetone drum. I can’t understand why he never blew up all of Huntington Beach. One day he had a board set up to laminate, I watched as he took his tub of resin over to the catalyst pump and squirted in some highly volatile catalyst. His face was too near the tub and a splash of catalyzed resin went up into his eyes. He let out a blood-curdling scream dropped the resin tub, which splashed resin all over his hands. With the intense burning in his eyes, he was compelled to rub them with his fingers, which smeared even more resin into them. Now, he was hopping around like a lunatic, he ran over to the acetone bucket used to melt resin off your hands and splashed acetone onto his face. This was the second worst thing he could have done other than dumping the acetone on his head and striking a match. He went completely berserk. We dragged him out of the building, held him down on the ground and washed his eyes out with the garden hose. He ended up in the hospital where eventually he recovered.
On your first paddle out at any Hawaiian surf spot, you are always relieved to see guys you know in the line up. At first you can gain a certain amount of status just by knowing locals and you will be allowed a higher position in the pecking order. If you don’t live up to the association by bull shitting too much or surfing lousy, you will be quickly demoted and the locals will start distancing themselves from you to prevent their own positions from deflating. In between the monster sets I had a brief conversation with each of the guys and my friends were impressed. I got a couple of waves and encouraged them to take off. On his first wave, Larry took off next to me. When he spun to catch the wave, his leash wrapped around both of his legs and hog-tied him to his board. I watched as he went straight down the face of a ten-foot wave and couldn’t stand up. The lip of the wave hammered down and ripped the board out from under him, then pulled the leash plug right out of the deck. Larry had to swim in.

Don got a few nice waves but Dave was a disaster. We watched as time after time he’d paddle like crazy for a wave, blow the take off and just get the worst bone crushing wipe- outs imaginable. I asked Dave what he was thinking when he was trying to catch a wave.

Naturally, since he is a mathematician, he said that his probability of a wipe out was about 92%, but residual benefits of his 8% success rate more than compensated for the negative effect of the wipe out. I guess that’s the way a mathematician thinks. I have to say that Dave was absolutely fearless, a giant outside set appeared, he spun and paddled like mad to catch it. He wasn’t a very strong paddler so he just hung at the top until the lip pitched him out into mid air. He came dropping out of the sky and landed on his back right on the deck of Philipe’s board. Philipe had caught the wave deeper and was coming across at full trim speed. He tripped over Dave and was catapulted into an ugly wipe out. Man was Philipe pissed, he ranted and raved and damn near ran Dave out of the water. After a while he realized how funny it was and just laughed it off. I became somewhat aware of my diminishing position in the pecking order and caught the next wave in.

After the session we searched and found the "under ground" glass shop hidden deep in a sugar cane field where Bobby was working. Bobby glued Larry’s leash cup back in. The next day we decided to surf at a lesser-known spot called Boilers a few miles North of Sunset. From the beach, it looked like a nice little 8-foot peak. As we paddled out, I recognized that the peak formed normally and then at the last second, sucked out and pitched hard. As we sat in the line up I noticed that when a swell moved by, big ugly whirlpools and up- welling appeared on the surface. Surfers call these "boils". They are caused by caves and boulders on the sea floor.

A big three waves set was approaching, I was a little uncomfortable with the set up and I said: you get this one, I’ll get the next. Larry spun and started paddling a second too soon. Larry had this bad habit of not looking over his shoulder at an approaching wave. This wave cured him of that habit forever. Again, he never got to his feet. The wave sucked out, lifted the tail of his board and he did an ass-over-tea-kettle air-launch. He looked like a cockroach with his arms and legs waving in the air then he hit headfirst like a human pile driver. I just let the next waves go buy because I wanted to see what happened to Larry. It must have been bad. First I saw nothing for a long time, then about 60 yards in I saw the back half of his board pop to the surface. It was "tumb stoning". (when the board stands on end in the water) Larry’s leash was 10’ long, so assuming that Larry’s ankle was 12’ under water then the rest of him was still 15’ underwater after doing a pretty nasty washing machine for 60 yards. I started paddling in and caught a small soup wave. Larry finally reached the surface. Man was he shook up. His second wave in Hawaii was a big disaster, his board was busted in half and he was drug through the boils at Boilers. He climbed up onto the back half of his board and started paddling like crazy for the beach. I found the front half and followed him in.

So far, things hadn’t gone too well on the North Shore. The next day we decided to ride the more docile waves at Chuns Reef. It was a beautiful morning and the waves were about 8’. Larry borrowed my extra board and everyone was getting great rides. As the morning wore on the surf kept getting bigger and bigger. By noon Chuns Reef closed out at about 12’. We decided to go back to the condo for lunch. As we passed Wiamea Bay, we saw that it was just starting to break at about 12’. Man was I excited, I said right after lunch we are riding Wiamea. Dave said: "Why-a-me-a?" no way! I quickly made the guys PB &J sandwiches and a glass of guava juice, Dave was so nervous and his hands were shaking so bad that he could barely get the floppy sandwich into his mouth; the guava juice was running down his arm. He looked like a vegetative retard trying to feed himself. Larry was pacing back and forth mumbling something about broken boards and his life insurance policy.

Eating at the Foo condos was always a little unnerving because of the giant cockroaches crawling all over the kitchen counters. I got revenge on the cockroaches by making a tooth pick harpoon with a piece of wooden dowel and a box of tooth picks. First I would harpoon them with the toothpick and then stick them to the cottage cheese ceiling like bugs mounted in a display case. The cockroaches would stay alive for days, their legs flailing in the air. After two weeks there was a whole dance course of them stuck to the ceiling. It was lovely with a steak dinner and nice bottle of red wine.
Don was assigned photographer duties. I ran out, took Don’s board off the car and loaded Dave’s new gun, got the boys together and said lets go. The problem was someone "lost" the car keys. We couldn’t find them anywhere so Larry and I decided to walk the three blocks back to Wiamea. When we got there it was a nice easy 12’ glassy day with no one out! Even on a small day at Wiamea, there is a big shore break to get through because as the wave runs along the side of the cove towards the beach, it wedges up and becomes bigger. You have to wait for the shore pound to wash way up the beach, then run down as it recedes, hurl yourself into the water and paddle like crazy to avoid getting flattened by the next wave. The timing is critical. Larry and I waited for a time to go, but as I sprang forward, he bent over to check his leash, then he started a few seconds after me. Poor Larry, he didn’t make it over the next shore pound, did a reverse lip launch and got washed back up on the beach like road kill. Larry was suffering a rough initiation to North shore surfing, but he got out on the second try and we rode quite a few waves together.


After a while the boys drove up. Dave got out of the car and spent twenty minutes putting on his vest and high top booties. He looked like a New York tourist. When he finally paddled out he said: Hay, where should I take off? I knew his paddle skills were lacking so I said right next to me. And when you go for a wave, keep paddling until you caught it for sure. A nice 10’ peak popped up, I said: go for it. Dave spun and paddled for all he was worth. The problem was, he didn’t stop paddling to stand up. He paddled right down the face of the wave. When he got to the bottom, the lip came crushing down on him and blasted him like a bombshell. This guy can really take punishment. The thing about a wipe out at Wiamea is; it is long and severe, you don’t float back to the surface forever. The lip hits the bottom so hard that the water churns into a soup of thick bubbles for 20 feet down. After your body does about 6-loop de loops it just stays under. You float because you are lighter than water, but you are not lighter than bubbles! In addition, your hands don’t propel you through bubbles very well. Normally when you open your eyes under water in Hawaii it is bright and blue, but when you open your eyes during a wipe out at Wiamea it is dark and black because the bubbles block out the sun. Dave survived his wipe out and when he paddled back out he said: I can survive anything, that wasn’t so bad. I said: look, you only have got to paddle just a couple of extra strokes, but make sure you stand up at the top of the wave and take the drop on your feet. Larry and I caught the next wave and witnessed Dave’s next bone crushing wipe out as we paddled back out. He had paddled for another wave, but stood up too soon. He realized that he was going to be tossed into space so he turned backwards and dove off the tail of his board to try and leap over the back of the wave. His board was hammered by the lip. He was clawing at the back of the wave, but he was sucked over the falls feet first by his own leash. I couldn’t help but laugh. When he got back out to the line up, he was still determined to get a ride. I said: just paddle and stand up as usual, don’t do anything different. I caught the next wave and while paddling out, again watched as Dave lined up for another take off. He was in the perfect position on a nice 10 footer. Even my mother could have caught that wave. To our amazement, Dave paddled, got to his feet, made the drop and trimmed across his first ride at Wiamea Bay. He rode right past me. When I got to the line up, I saw him running up the beach. He loaded his board on the car and was waving us in. I thought that maybe he was delirious from his first attempts so we caught a wave and went in. Dave and Don were in the car and ready to go. We tied our boards on and raced toward Haleiwa. Dave kept saying to Don: Are you sure you got it? Apparently Don had snapped a picture of Dave’s ride. We skidded to a stop in front of the one-hour photo shop. Dave paced the floor until the print was produced. When it came, there he was in living color. He looked like a New York tourist in hiking boots and a t-shirt, but he loved it. He ordered a poster blow-up (which we hung on the wall below the cockroaches) and 100 wallet size prints. He was so proud of his shot that he went around handing the little prints out even to strangers.

I have to say that for the next several years, Dave went back and surfed Wiamea every winter until he could actually catch and ride some pretty big waves there. His success rate rose to 17% and his residual benefits were enormous.