The biggest change was in
the ’70s, when the attention
of the surfers and spectators
shifted from the centre of the
surf universe, Sunset Beach,
to Pipeline. In 1971, I first
started to shoot Off The Wall,
aka Leongs, aka Kodak reef.
Jeff Hakman immediately went
into a stink bug stance not
wanting me to get good shots
of his secret spot.
He and his roommate Bill
Sikler proceeded to flip me off.
In 1970, a rarity was seeing Sam
Hawk pulling into Backdoor, soul
arching getting pitted and not
coming out. I remember setting
up to shoot Gerry Lopez with
no other cameras on the beach.
Just morning beach walkers and
puka shell pickers. I lost that
advantage after shooting him
for an hour and realising I didn’t
have film in the camera!
By the mid-’70s, the cameras
were thick. Aaron Chang
declared it a “maggot scene”.
Surfing mag called it “Kodak
reef”. The Pipeline Underground- a group of friends who surfed
it all the time by themselves - declared it “Paradise Lost”.
The girls started to come, the
tourists, the surfers from around
the world, all driven by heavy
magazine coverage and fantasy
looking waves.
And underneath all of that
was a rocketing money ball
coming from the blossoming
surf lifestyle garment industry,
advertising their team riders
and pumping money into
the magazines, and therefore
creating bigger issues with more
photos of Pipeline, Backdoor and
Off The Wall.
We used to be at Sunset
wondering how good Pipeline
would be. The typical report
was that no one good was out.
Or, there was too much north
in the swell. By the mid-’70s we
were all at Pipeline shooting; a
migration that included all of
the best surfers in the world. We
had figured out that, when there
was north in the swell, Backdoor
was good and people rode it. And
to a photographer it was a no-
brainer – the wave was right in
your face, not way out to sea.
The locals at Sunset soon saw
the crowd numbers drop. The
other biggest change has been
the early ‘we are all brothers and
friends’ vibe in the lineup to a
snarly, gnarly, aggressive pack
sitting on the take-off spots.WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST
CHANGES TO PIPELINE
AND BACKDOOR YOU’VE
WITNESSED OVER THE
YEARS? What’s the bravest or craziest thing
you’ve seen anyone do out there?
Butch Van Artsdalen lifeguarded at Pipeline
for years. The lifeguards are the ones who’ve
really seen everything, from crazy to mind
boggling.
In the mid-’70s, Butch swam out to rescue
some drunken marines caught in a radical
rip on a big blown-out day. To Butch’s horror,
his favourite dog had followed him out and
was drowning in the sets of waves. Butch
punched out one of the marines in anger and
proceeded to rescue his dog and the marines.
Sunny Garcia once broke his wrist in a
Pipe Masters heat; went to the medical centre
at Kahuku, got treated, and then hitchhiked
back down to the contest and entered his
next heat!
The most poignant thing I ever saw,
I started to cry on the beach. It was the
morning Malik Joyeux died at Pipeline. All of
the surfers in the lineup (around 40 of them)
swarmed through the inside to rescue him.
But he had disappeared. Minutes seemed like
hours; they eventually found him and he had
already passed.
Kahea Hart organised 60 surfers into a
large circle, holding hands. A prayer was said
and everyone raised their hands in unison to
the sky. The perfect west swell peak outside
was eight-foot, glassy, and there was no one
in the water.
“The most poignant thing I ever saw, I started to cry on the beach. It was the
morning Malik Joyeux died at Pipeline. Kahea Hart organised 60 surfers into a
large circle, holding hands. A prayer was said and everyone raised their hands in
unison to the sky.” – Jeff Divine