Ian Walsh feeling right at home on a Jaws bomb. Photo: Sofie Louca – Fish Bowl Diaries
Oh my god.
My brain was conserving oxygen, I think. That’s what I later learned after talking to a few people that know a lot about this type of stuff. I remember everything just stopped working, even though I was coherent enough tell my arms and legs to swim. Then I opened my eyes, kind of in a panic, to see how deep I was from the surface. It was the darkest black I’ve ever seen. Then a millisecond later, I surfaced. I guess I was really close to the surface, but I was really close to blacking out, as well.
Holy shit.
I was pretty young then. That was when I learned, “ok, I guess I definitely need to be fit and ready for the next time this happens.” That was a scary one.
What about using spare air? You ever think about that?
No, I don’t know too much about those. From what I’ve heard, though, you need to exhale first, to clear the air valve. To me, that seems like a pretty big gamble: being underwater and exhaling some of your air to be able to take in new air. If that thing has any bit of a malfunction, you’ve just exhaled all your air. You might as well just have punched yourself in the stomach. I’d rather just take what I have on me and rely on myself.
Do you think all this new technology is enabling people that might not have the confidence or experience to be out there?
Yeah, it does and it doesn’t. You can have one of those inflatable suits on with all the bells and whistles, but all that goes flying away when huge waves comes to you. I don’t ever find myself thinking, “Well, I have the wetsuit on… I’m going to try this wave!” You don’t even remember that you have it on when you’re paddling for the wave. You only really process that you have that one when you eat shit. For me, that’s the whole point. Use that stuff only when you really need it. It doesn’t matter what you have on. At the end of the day, it’s whether you actually want the wave.
Do you like being scared?
I guess that’s part of it. I mean, I wouldn’t want to just hang out all day with someone holding a gun to my head. That’s not my favorite Saturday. But as far as surfing goes, I do like pushing myself. I do like being scared and then having the ability to push myself past it and being able to focus through it. I’m happy after I have a great day in big waves and I’ve ridden a few waves that I’m proud to have ridden.
I guess that can be transferred to everyone. A big wave is relative to who’s on it.
That’s it. It’s a personal sense of accomplishment. Everyone has different levels of that. For me, that’s what it is. It’s just that’s exactly what I want to be doing. On those big days, there isn’t anywhere else in the world that I’d rather be.
You were there for Greg’s Cortes wipeout, right? Does that rattle you at all?
Yeah that was a hard one. But as bad as that was and as scary as that was, we learned a lot. I don’t ever want to go through that again, and it was a really heavy reality check, but that’s part of it. That can happen. I don’t ever want to see one of my close friends laying that position, but he was feeling good that day and charging.We realize what we’re getting ourselves into, though. It’s your decision which wave you turn and go on. Thankfully everything worked out with the equipment we had out there and Greg was able to pull it, but that’s happening in every sport. I mean, look at snowboarding. The level is so high that things are going to happen. You just have to approach everything with the right mindset and being prepared for as much as you can be. All the guys that are doing this stuff at that level are really confident at dealing with really bad situations, and I think that helps a lot.
Consequences are so fucking high for you guys. It’s crazy.
They are, but we all grew up surfing. I’ve surfed almost every day since I was a little kid, and that’s what where I can push myself the most.
What’s this goFlow thing you’ve partnered with?
I helped do some of the development for a few stages of the app. It’s something that I use now for forecasting and checking waves. For me, when the waves are on at home, there are so many different spots to surf. I have pretty big group of friends that I communicate with about where we should go. With this, you can put everyone into one circle and take a photo of where you’re at. Then they can all do the same thing and all of us can see where we are checking really quickly. Or you can have it public. Like, say you just scored and you have to go to work, but the waves are still pumping. You can post a photo.
Like a pay it forward type thing?
Exactly. The biggest thing for me is the forecasting, though. They partnered with Stormsurf, and they got a seven-day detailed surf forecast and weather conditions for each spot all over the world. For me, that’s an ideal situation. Another big feature for me is that I’m constantly checking sandbars and banks around the world, too. If a big swell hits, a lot of places have waves. If I go to one, I’m always wondering how the other ones are on that same swell and this is a way to see, in real-time, how those other spots are.
That sounds cool. Ok, Ian. That’s all I have. Let me know next time you’re in LA. We’ll get beers.
Will do. Love beers.
