The Big Wave Tour just did the smartest thing they’ve ever done. They added Puerto Escondido to the event schedule.
Puerto Escondido is one of those spots that turns into the life of the party any time the ocean decides it’s going to throw a giant fiesta. The waves there get huge, they get stupidly hollow, and to the layperson, they get really, really scary. It’s the perfect show. Which is exactly why it’s the smartest thing they’ve ever done.
I’ve long been of the opinion that if the people over at the World Surf League want to bring surfing to the masses, they’re going about it all wrong–and not just because I don’t want the masses in the lineup. It’s because unless they surf, which the masses do not, they can’t understand or appreciate the complexities of surfing on smaller waves… which the tour has to suffer through quite often. Take Snapper, for example. The first event of the season, and the waves were shit. The addition of shitty waves with a larger audience doesn’t seem to be the right way to go about it. No one, no matter how many of them there are, will ever be as interested in two-foot, lully onshore slop as they will be in 10-foot crystal clear blue tubes.
What they CAN appreciate, though, is a very small person on a very large wave. It’s that same fascination that makes us watch lion tamers and Evel Knievel: death is looming just off screen. When the World Surf League bought the Big Wave Tour, my first thought was that in five years, the big wave circuit would become what that guy in Idaho thought was surfing. That’s what he’d tune in to watch from his living room. Greg Long would be the new Kelly Slater; he’d score a leading role in whatever the kids are watching these days and do an Apple ad. But then 2014 happened.
It was the first year under the WSL’s umbrella, and it was, at least in my eyes, a disaster. Only two events ran. There was virtually no coverage on a larger scale of them. For a business that wants so desperately to bring surfing to whole damn world, the WSL seemed to have hidden the most watchable part of it, and Mother Nature looked to be in cahoots with their scheme to keep it quiet. The waves simply didn’t show up, and even when they did, we didn’t get to watch. Remember that time the Jaws event was given the green light, which was then turned off? And then the waves turned out to be some of the biggest of the whole season? Yeah, me too.
But with the addition of the thumping Mexican beach break, full of those sandy black death pits just mere feet from the beach, the World Surf League and the Big Wave Tour have found a place with just about everything: easy access, massive waves, and a whole lot of death-defying. That guy in Idaho is going to love it.
“The Big Wave Tour is entering into its second full year under the WSL banner and the enhancements made to this upcoming season are designed with one goal in mind–run as many events as possible in the largest surf on offer,” said Peter Mel, former BWT Champion and WSL BWT Commissioner.
So, if conditions prove to be a little more willing to show up to the party, 2015 might be year that the Big Wave Tour finally finds its wings. And if the masses see it flying, you can bet they’ll be coming back for more.