Worth the wait? For some, yes. For some, no. Photo: WSL
Late in October, one of the greatest surfing contests in the world sounded its starting horn. It was, of course, the 2017 Pe’ahi Challenge, and it was incredible to watch–for some people, that is. Some people didn’t like it because it is, for the most part, a few people floating around waiting for waves, tiny specks on a vast blue ocean. Some people don’t like big wave contests. Some people don’t like surfing contests. Some people don’t like ice cream or lasagne, either. And some people love anchovies and casu marzu cheese and fermented salmon heads. Hell, some people love having their balls stomped on by a long-legged woman in high heels. Who am I to judge?
One of those people who didn’t like the 2017 Pe’ahi Challenge is a man named JP Currie. In all of surfing, Currie’s writing is some of my favorite. He calls bullshit from his home across the pond, doesn’t give a fuck what you think, and knows how to push your buttons. “His bilious, muckraking, yellow tripe is on the same debased level of spiteful nonsense that existed at Gawker Media,” wrote someone in an email I received a few years ago. Yesterday, he penned a piece for us that we called Opinion: The Pe’ahi Challenge Is Boring as Shit. “I sat through all the opening heats of the Pe’ahi Challenge,” Currie wrote about the Jaws contest. “It wasn’t easy. In fact, it was terminally boring. Publications claimed that ‘Jaws is fucking pumping right now!’, but what I saw was a lot of downtime. Kaipo and Pete Mel did a decent job of trying to keep us engaged. But what we were looking at, for the most part, was a bunch of guys in fat suits, floating around a line-up on oversized boards with very few breaking waves.”
Oh, the outrage! Vein bursting, fist-clenching, table smashing outrage! Both outrage at JP for having an opinion about something (how dare he!) and at us, The Inertia, for publishing an opinion that differed from a few previous posts, such as this and this. How dare we provide a platform where different opinions can be heard? It’s much better to provide a platform where the opinions of only a few industry insiders can be heard, is it not?
Fuck no, it’s not!
“Lolcano,” wrote one Facebook commenter. “A self proclaimed ‘surf journo’ bagging a contest where men and women paddle into huge fucking waves that can literally kill you and still pulling into the barrel. What ever [sic] bud, have you ever surfed big waves? You’ve missed the point completely.”
“The guy is a fucking idiot!” wrote another Facebook commenter who only read the headline and decided to vomit his anger onto his keyboard. “Just a few years ago, this wave was considered unpaddlable! Now guys are charging barrels you could literally drive a truck through!”
I, on the other hand, thought the Pe’ahi Challenge was mind-blowing. I sat behind my computer oohing and ahhing and gasping and exclaiming while other people surfed waves that I will never, ever surf. I pretended to have even the tiniest inkling of what it would be like to surf a 50-foot wave. I was hanging out with one of the competitors a few weeks ago in Mexico, and I cannot, for the life of me, attach the person I saw drinking poolside skinny margaritas to the person I saw in the event yesterday–which, I suppose, can be taken as proof of Currie’s point. “I’m sure it’s spectacular if you’ve been in the line-up,” he wrote, “or if you’re from Maui, or have personal connections to those involved.”
But lulls and personal connections be damned, I’m pretty sure I would wait hours to watch just one of those waves. For me, and for many, I suppose, the waiting is part of what makes it exciting. If not for the waiting, we’d just have the surfing, and even watching people surfing 50-foot waves over and over and over and over and over would get boring after a while. And that’s my opinion. Currie’s got his own, and I get it. “Just because it’s surfing, just because it’s being broadcast by the WSL, and just because there are skis and boats and drones and Dave Wassell, does that mean I should care about it?” Currie asked.
Fuck no, it doesn’t!
