Jack Johnson surfing Rocky Point. Photo: RawSurfGlobal // YouTube
Love or hate his music, it’s hard not to appreciate something about Jack Johnson. If you’re into adult-contemporary odes to fruit-adorned breakfast foods and misshapen toes, look no further than an over twenty-year-long career in which he’s never strayed far from that well-appointed wheelhouse. If that’s not so much your jam, you can at least admire his charitable work, which includes multiple non-profits dedicated to supporting environmental, art and music education. If none of that does anything for you, then the man sure can rip.
That’s right, it’s a fact that gets sort of overshadowed by the whole mega-successful singer songwriter thing, but Johnson was a surfer long before he was a musician. In 1992, he became the youngest surfer to make the finals of the Pipe Masters Trials, when he was just 17 years old. However, just a week later, a nearly fatal wipeout kept him out of the water for months, during which time he honed his guitar-playing skills and set his sights on college, rather than the lineup.
Though he left the competitive circuit behind, he definitely did not abandon surfing altogether. The latest evidence of that comes from a new video on YouTube channel RawSurfGlobal, where a quick and dirty edit opens up with Jack surfing Rocky Point, on Oahu’s north shore.
Looks like he’s still got it.
