"Creature of the Night," by Andrew Farrell, ran in the December 1998 issue of Australia's Surfing Life. Farrell and Powell were both of an ASL-launched surf and camping trip to Western Australia, along with Taj Burrow, Martin Potter, Maurice Cole, Ross Clarke-Jones, and Pancho Sullivan. This article has slightly shortened and edited.

Shane Powell's surfing career is a creaky Jakarta bemo weaving through the backstreets. It gets air over a bump and you hold your breath expecting the whole thing to disintegrate on the road. But it lands, does a hairy left turn and keeps fanging down the alley, belching smoke and leaving onlookers standing around going, "What the fuck just happened?"

To continue the metaphor, the Powelly-bemo's erratic world tour competitive history bounces around like this:

 Running hot, finishes second to Kelly Slater on year-end ratings.


 Hits some potholes, almost loses a wheel, finishes 10th.


 Controlled regained, two wins in Europe, back up to 3rd.


: Strange grinding noises from the engine, brakes mostly inoperative, currently at 17th heading into Brazil.

"I'm too lazy sometimes,'' Shane tells me of his mixed fortunes. ''I watch videos of guys in barrels and they come out of the tube and fucken gouge it. I like to get a barrel and just stand there, and when I come out I'll cruise off the wave."

Powelly is straight and honest about who he is and what's happening to him, about facing his weaknesses and understanding his strengths. His weakness comes from life on land. His strength is in the water. Problem is, of course, the two are impossibly and forever connected. "You can always tell if someone's got girlfriend problems or other problems. You look at some guy and think, Fuck, he's not all there, he doesn't have that edge. How you surf has so much to do with how you are on the land at that time; how you're dealing with people and friends, what frame of mind you're in. Your whole lifestyle at any given moment contributes to your style."

Ahhhh, style—that rarest of jewels in modern surfing. In a world of hyperactive surf mutants, with their legs spread apart and arms flapping hither and yon, Powelly stands apart. Always smooth, always attractive (the style that is) and, dare we say it, Currenesque.

For a guy with a big party rep, Powelly takes it easy on this trip. Shane and Taj, the two surfers with us who are still on tour, are first to bed every night, totally ignoring the temptation of ASL's 25 cases of Emu bitter. Only at the very end of our journey do I see Powelly in bender mode. It had been a long beer-soaked final day in our adopted bush pub. Shane and I were the last men standing (just) from our crew. During our many games of double-vision pool, Powelly has become mates with the local crew, who open right up to his mellow and easy-going nature.

He's a self-confessed creature of the night, and as closing time approaches the creature is finally let loose. Shane's eyes, I notice, have grown wide and intense. "Where I can we 

 Had we been in or near an urban area of any description, anywhere on the planet, it would've been all over. But not here in the desert. The town we're in shuts down at midnight and the bender-monster before me is reluctantly stopped in its tracks. But those wild eyes beneath a mad salt-encrusted shock of hair, the hunger for bad craziness—it was a terrifying vision. This man could party for days.

Powelly was stoked to come on this trip because he got an opportunity, in a fully non-contest setting, to surf with Ross, Pottz, Taj, and Pancho. A small but rock-solid timeline of surfers that he sits in the middle of. "It's so inspiring," he tells me, "to see those guys up close."

But Shane was there for other reasons as well. The man loves his fishing. I mean, 

 loves it. On some afternoons, instead of lolling in our canvas-and-nylon desert redoubt, he'd head out to hunt crabs for bait, then go catch some fish, and some peace. If his rollercoaster career fails to survive its next jolting loop, it seems pretty obvious he'll be happy to fire up the boat, head towards the horizon, and keep well away far from the shore-filled madness of surf contests, party psychosis, scenesters, rented cars, airport comas and the other innumerable perils that stalk the pro tour.

One afternoon, photographer Tim Macdonald and I have been posted alone on a shark-infested outer-reef peak I wanted to name The Devil's Lunch," or "Fuck, What Was That Splash Over There?" So far we've both managed to avoid faceplanting on the heaving takeoff section and have gotten the odd fun wall through the inside. Then an ominous buzzing sound fills our ears. Two minutes later the cavalry arrives, with commander Cole at the helm of his gleaming white speedboat, and a stack of pro surfers and photogs behind him. I secretly wonder if a great white could take the boat in one mouthful—maybe, but that leaves Tim and me out here as dessert.

Powelly, Pottz, Taj and Pancho jump over the side and are straight into the lineup, and all of a sudden it's like we've landed in the middle of a surf vid. Shane paddles into a wedging right-hander that has stitches written all over it. He takes off sideways, clearly sensing that by the time you got to the bottom of this wave you'd be history, tucks into the tube, and strains to hold his rail in the warping face. The whole thing is extreme, to say the least. He sneaks out it of that first section and goes directly into another that looks even less unmakeable—and makes it. There is no other way to say it. The man possesses freakish surfing powers.

Can he harness that power, and make it to the hallowed ground of surf legend occupied by the likes of Potter? That is the question. I think of the conversations Shane and I have had over the course of our trip. Maybe the problem comes not in listening to yourself, but in knowing what to do with the knowledge. It's one thing to see where and how you need sorting. It is another thing altogether to act on it.

Therein lies the key to Shane Powell's dilemma. He knows too well what his vices are. But they're vices, right? You do 'em cause you love 'em—despite the cost.

You can venture a guess as to what will happen next. Shane himself can venture a guess. But there is really no telling what the coming year will bring. For the moment anyway, the bemo has all four wheels on the ground.

"CREATURE OF THE NIGHT" - SHANE POWELL PROFILE BY ANDREW FARRELL

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