Nothing about this job interests me more than throwing light into the ever-grinding tectonic-plate furrow where surfing meets the rest of life. All our heartfelt stories about learning to surf, about the thrills and adventures, the perfect waves, the hairball moments—don't get me wrong, I love that stuff too. I gather and organize and deal out those moments here on EOS eight hours a day, and readers respond in kind, and we thus rub each other's shoulders and feel good about the choice we've all made to surf a lot. And we should feel good. But for me, 50 years into the surfing experience, things don't really get interesting until you introduce a non-surfing foreign element. Something weighty. See what happens when you mix surfing with marriage or age or depression. Raise the stakes, in other words.

Kimo Hollinger does this, fearlessly, every time he sits down to write. Which, too bad for us, isn't all that often. The articles he's published for Surfer's Journal—about 10 or so, dating back to 1997—are all over the place in terms of subject matter, but are connected in how they examine the way surfing intersects with everything else; about how, when the shit gets real, the sport might be magical or might be useless. Surfing, in the end, Hollinger believes, will make your life better. It will not save you.

This Kimo Hollinger piece presented here was part of a longer feature titled "Couple Jabs," which ran in the 2003 issue of Surfer's Journal. The event itself took place in late 1976.

I sat in my car at Waimea that morning drinking a beer and checking the surf. My car was one of the few parked at the lookout. I could see dudes down on the beach waxing up. I smoked a joint and had another beer. I thought of the guys I used to surf with who were no longer around. I said to myself, “All right, you fuckers. I'll be the rep.”

I paddled out and said hello to the brothers. I remember Eddie Aikau and Roger Erickson. The surf was 20-foot, good fun. We clowned around for an hour, then it got serious. I was 35 years old, and my eyes were going bad. I didn't see the set. Eddie and Roger said they tried to call me, but I didn't hear them. It must have been the wind, or the Primos. I was too far in. The incoming waves were feathering across the entire channel. The first one looked smaller than the ones behind, but it was twice as big as the ones we had been surfing. I tried to catch it. It was too steep, and I freefell. I took a terrific beating. It wouldn’t let me go. When I finally did make it up, I had to clear a hole in the thick foam to get a breath. The following closeout waves were right on top of me. I figured that I was going to die. I hoped my ex-wife would take care of the kids. I struggled so hard to stay alive. I did not want to die. Finally, the set passed. I was so exhausted. My wetsuit was around my neck, and my Speedos were around my ankles.

I started to cry. I asked God for forgiveness; I would not tempt him again. Instead of swimming left in along the point, I swam straight into the shorebreak. I had ceased to think rationally. The 15' shorebreak again punished me. I looked up and saw Butch Van Artsdalen running down the beach. He was screaming at me to swim west, around the jump rock. I swam around the rock and tried to make it to shore. I could not manage the last 20 feet. The crowd on the cliff urged me on, but I was so tired. Lifeguards Butch and Mark Dombrowski and the fire rescue squad formed a human chain, grabbed me, and pulled me in.

I was pummeled on the rocks but didn’t care. They had saved my life. I was alive. It felt so wonderful.

Butch kept scolding me, “Are you crazy?” I thanked my rescuers. Richard Seto Mook, the squad captain, said he would bury the incident. My body was covered with cuts from the sharp rocks. I didn't give a shit. I was alive.

I think my lady friend Ina figured I was a lost cause after what happened. Eddie and Clyde gave me a slack-key serenade that evening. I sold my big-wave boards. I quit surfing big waves. I told Ken Bradshaw he could have my spot.

KIMO HOLLINGER: THE LAST BIG WAVE

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