Bodyboarding gets a real bad rap, doesn’t it? A lot of people associate it with little kids flopping around on a floppy piece of foam from an ABC Store, covered in zinc and wearing a sunhat, their little full-body sun protection suit filling with sand as tiny waves ram them violently into the shoreline. A lot of people think it’s an in-road to surfing — the time before you can stand up, so you just stay prone.
But it’s not. Sure, it can be those things, but when you get way up the tree, you run into bodyboarders who will charge waves that surfers won’t. Bodyboarders are responsible for proving that places like “Ours” can be ridden.
For years, they’ve been the unsung heroes of slabs – most of them were first discovered and ridden by bodyboarders. I like to think of them as a paving crew of sorts, paving the way for surfers on surfboards, showing them that yes, this wave can be ridden. A paving crew full of some of the most insane people on any kind of board. “F*ckin’ spongers,” we mutter. We’re an ungrateful bunch, aren’t we?
In my daily perusal of surf-related content to tell you about, I routinely type names into search engines like Jeff Hubbard or Mike Stewart. Those two are a lot more than just spongers — they’re wave-riding geniuses. And this morning, I stumbled across this very old video from the Agit/Turbo Zicatela Pro in 2011. Old video. Bodyboarding. Should I click? I clicked.
The event, an IBA Grand Slam, ran on Saturday, August 13, 2011. Puerto Escondido was huge. Ten-to-twelve feet, funneling, and as usual, as heavy as a building. A contest I had never even heard of, which is not all that rare, but this contest? It was a good one.
“The waves today were so big and perfect,” said Ryan Hardy. “It’s pretty much as big and good as a beachbreak can get.”
Jeff Hubbard won the whole thing, beating his brother Dave in the quarters. But the winner doesn’t really matter all that much, does it? When the waves are this good, it’s all about the ride, whether you’re standing up or not.
