This article originally ran in the December 1989 issue of Surfing magazine. It has been slightly edited.

Vetea David is not your average pro surfer. "Jeez, he’s the full flower child, isn’t he?” one pro said when I mentioned I was going to hang out with Vetea for a week in Tahiti. Flowers play a big part in life on this warm, shimmering island. Frangipani, Tiare . . . Poto's mother even grows potted plants in his trophies. They give you wonderful trophies in Tahiti: big solid pewter cups, perfect for planting things in. “I fill all his trophies,” his mother beams, pointing to his 1986 world amateur title cup, where another plant is sprouting. “They are good decorations, no?”

The David family home sits comfortably on a small ridge five minutes south of Papeete, facing across the lagoon and looking out over Moorea, the island just west of Tahiti. You can check the swell with a quick glance at the reef a half-mile offshore, or by walking outside and gazing down to Vetea’s favorite surf spot, Ta’apuna.

This is where Vetea hangs out when he is not on tour, surfing with his friend TeTe when there are waves, watching canoe races on TV, going to the gym, cruising. Vetea’s nickname, Poto, has puzzled many people. When was he first named Poto? “I was like fat and small,” says Poto, who now stands 6'2 " and weighs 185, laughing, “and I was hanging wit’ all the big guys, so they call me grommet which is 'Poto'." I point out that Gary Elkerton no longer wants to be called Kong. What about you, Poto? Another laugh. "Either way. I don’t care.”

Poto is not sure how old he was when he first surfed. “I played soccer,” he says. “I was captain of the team. I was maybe seven, eight. A guy living out the back, the boyfriend of my cousin. I was hanging wit’ him and that’s why I started surfing, because he was going surfing every day.”

He started at Ta’apuna, which at first sounds heavy—a viciously shallow coral left-hand barrel for a 10-year-old regular-foot? Ta’apuna means “jaw of Puna,” Puna being a warrior from Bora Bora who was killed in battle and scattered all over the island of Tahiti. But a peak does swing wide into deeper water at Ta’apuna where an enterprising grommet might easily hang out and ride shoulders and get used to it.

Poto has two brothers and a sister. His brothers followed him into the waves. One, Moana, is hot enough to have made a final of the 1984 World Amateur Titles.

There were almost no surf magazines around. A friend of Poto’s had a subscription for a year to the two American mags and still keeps his twelve copies of both in a dusty satchel in his garage

At first, Poto’s parents were like a lot of parents: not too sure about their son’s latest obsession. Surfboards were not easy to come by. His first one came from his godfather, a big old single-fin beast. A couple of Aussies came and stayed at his cousin’s house and at the end of their stay one of them gave him a board. “And he was the first guy to give me a sticker to stick on my board! I know nothing about that" Another time a hot Ta’apuna goofyfooter, a Chinese-Tahitian called Jacque, shaped him a board for half-price.

Poto fell in with the local surfers, Arsene Harehoe especially. “I watched Arsene pulling into the barrel, every day." It took his surfing in a direction entirely different to that being worked on at the same time by grommets in Australia and California—less refined, more tube-oriented, more instinctive. He is the backside tube supremo. “When you learn to surf on the reefs, your style is different. My style is more like six-foot waves, and barrel.” He laughs. He has a terrific way of saying the word “barrel”. It comes out in this delicious roll. “Barr-rrel,” he says, smiling ear to ear. “Barr-rrel! Plen-ny barr-rrel.” It 

Poto began entering contests after he followed Tahiti’s hottest grommet of 1982, Wilfred Sanford, to a beachbreak called Papaara. The spot wasn’t nearly as good as Ta’apuna, but Poto had already decided he wanted to compete and knew he needed to practice in a variety of waves.

A few things happened in quick succession. First, Mark Richards came to Tahiti for a couple of weeks holiday. “That year I saw him surfing at Papaara, he was insane,” says Poto. “Like flying down the line over the whitewater. That was the first guy I seen ripping. He was going so far. And then I seen Rabbit, pulling in the barrel doing a layback, and I learn from that.”

Then Wilfred took Poto to see his sponsor, a man by the name of Patrick Juventin. Patrick is a terrific character. He is short, strong, French and a talented surfer who had been running Tahiti Surfboards for some years before Poto came along. Jean Juventin, Patrick's uncle, is mayor of Papeete.

Patrick started making Poto’s boards. “I see this grommet with a thick twin-fin,” recalls Patrick of Vetea’s early days. “Very big board. I think he was just ten or 12 years old.”

Poto began winning the Tahitian boys and junior division contests. Before long he began winning everything in sight. "At first," says Patrick, "Arsene was winning all the contests, no one could beat him. Then suddenly Poto was beating him all the time.”

In 1983, Australian shaper Terry Fitzgerald, who is connected to Patrick through business and friendship, went to Tahiti on his way back to Sydney from the USA. Patrick took him surfing with Poto. “He was a starry-eyed grommet, a shy Polynesian kid," recalls Fitz. "We [Hot Buttered] did him some boards. He was a bit of a brat but he could surf!’

What was the thing Fitz noticed most about Poto’s surfing? “No fear.”

Vetea's parents may have been unsure about his surfing at first, but now they have immense pride in their youngest son. Poto's father is shortish, rounded, a little like Ernest Borgnine, but carries a quiet air of calm self-containment. He is a former French commando who spent time in Algeria and retired with the rank of lieutenant. Poto's mother, from the Cook Islands, is big, generous, Polynesian and superb.

There is a picture of Poto on one of the living room walls. It is surrounded with cut-out paper hearts.

In early 1985 Poto, having been hauled by Terry and Patrick over to Sydney for the Pro Junior event, was sitting in a cold car at Narrabeen in the rain when he saw Nicky Wood walking down to the contest site to get his jersey.

A light blinked on in Poto’s head. Nick Wood was gunning for the 1986 World Tides. Poto felt the first pangs of ambition.

“I gotta make sure I was in Tahitian team, so I gotta train,” he says. “So with TeTe, I was training in the swimming pool, boxing every morning, jogging, heavy stuff. And my old friend Viri, he was paddler before, and they have a program. So he figured how to make a program. I didn’t know nothing about those things. We made a program for me to work out for a year.”

The 1986 World Tides were in Newquay, England, which isn't known as a big-wave spot. But Poto worked away at it and on the last day the swell came up to six feet. Poto won the juniors, Nicky Wood came second, with Kelly Slater and John Shimooka filling the minors.

A world amateur champion is good news at any beach. In Tahiti, where no athlete had won so much as a European title, much less a world title, Poto became famous. "Over here I was a legend," he says, perfectly unselfconscious. And he is! Tahiti has never had a sportsperson like him. Magazines run cover stories on Vetea when he comes home between contests. He knows everyone. Literally. Driving down the main street of Papeete, he waves endlessly to cyclists, shoppers, hip-looking Tahitian surfers leaning up against street comers, waiting for the swell to come up; he knows them all. “My friend, he has a big boat,” he says, pointing to one guy. Or: “My cousin, he has a big house near Maraa. Styling!” Or: “That guy right there, he is a strong paddler.”

It is 8:30 AM, and we are going surfing. Tahiti is shaped like an 8, with the smaller O—Tahiti Nui — lying to the southeast. This morning we are going to the west side of Tahiti-Nui.

At the local Mobil station, a guy about Poto’s age comes out to fill the tank. As we drive away, Poto tells me we just met an old school friend, someone he has not seen since leaving school. Is that what most of his old school friends do—pump gas? Poto shrugs. “Not many jobs,” he says. “Construction, maybe . . .” his voice trails off. Tahiti’s economy, resting on the fading glow of tourism, is not brimming with opportunities for the young. I begin to realize how people might consider Poto to be a very lucky boy. He makes a considerable amount of money, is in the papers all the time, gets to travel.

Poto's friend TeTe is with us, riding in the back of the pickup truck. The contrast between the two is interesting. TeTe is a curious character. He lives in a ramshackle house up in a valley behind Poto’s house, the same valley where Poto owns a block of land. His poverty seems to have prepared him for a lifetime of silent Poto watching. If he resents this he does not show it. His sharp chin recedes behind his mustache when he grins.

Poto pilots the car along the nameless road that weaves its way down the western side of Tahiti. Poto is a crazy driver. He handles the wheel with a primal zaniness, but is convinced he drives well. He is stoked to be going surfing.

As we drive through the perfect morning sun, he points out the reef passes. “Sapenuse,” he says. ‘And next to it, Two-plus-Two. Is called because of the school, see, in front? So, Two-plus-two-is-four.” He laughs and narrowly misses another cyclist.

All the waves look strange, just thin white noiseless strips far across the dead calm of the lagoon, like mirages.

After an hour or so Poto swings the car down a side-track to the edge of the lagoon. TeTe jumps out of the back. There is a boat leaning against a tree. This is how you surf in Tahiti—with a boat, cruising out the mile or so through the surreal lagoon waterscape to the reef, taking food and water for the day.

We launch the boat and drive out to the south along the inside of the reef. The first break we check is too small. A half-mile down the reef, however, is a nice little right. Six other surfers are already in the water. TeTe, the driver, putters the boat down inside the reef to an anchorage. Poto and I paddle out; TeTe stays behind.

Watching Poto surf is intriguing. He reminds you of Buttons, always slightly off-balance. The art of his performance, again like Buttons, is found in the slashing recovery from somewhere beyond vertical. Like a big cat, Poto always seems to land on his feet at the bottom, ready to throw himself into the next move. He does not talk much in the water but saves his breath for paddling. Poto surfs for three hours while the rest of us watch in astonishment.

TeTe concentrates hard on his friend. When Poto is finished, TeTe drives the boat over to the break to pick him up. Back at the beach he takes the motor off the boat and puts it in the back of the truck. Although TeTe took his board, he didn’t get a chance to surf. The day before we had surfed Ta’apuna together and I’d hooted at one of TeTe’s off-the-lips; with smiles and gestures he’d demonstrated that it was nothing. “I do one, Poto does many,” he said, holding up a finger. “Poto number one.”

Back home, after the 1986 World Titles, Patrick Juventin advised 17-year-old Poto not to turn pro straight away. “Patrick said to me, 'You should do it in 1988. Win the men's World Title, 

 turn pro’,” says Poto. “But I figure out if the waves maybe small, anything could happen, maybe not make the team. And if you not make the final of the World Title, nobody gonna hear of you." Poto ignored the advice and went pro in late 1986, at the Pipeline Masters.

It was tough going at first. The competition was tough; way tougher than he thought. "The level was too high for me at the start," he remembers. I couldn't do anything. I was like disappointed. So many times I wanted to give up."

The language barrier was just as hard. "The first year, all I know is 'Yes' and 'No'." Qantas Airlines was his sponsor, so he had tickets, but on most flights he was the only pro surfer onboard. "I don't have noone to pick me up, and I was just stressing all the time. On the plane flying anywhere, I was wondering, 'What problems are there going to be?' No car means I gotta catch the bus, or catch the train, to the surf break. Nobody else on the pro circuit, just me."

Terry Fitzgerald backs Poto up. “He’s the only person who’s ever managed to get from Narita Airport [Japan] to Chiba on public transport with four surfboards."

The following year, however, the experience was rubbing off. Some numbers: In 1986 Poto finished 102nd on the pro tour rankings. In 1987, after winning two trials events back to back—Margaret River and Newcastle—he beat Hans Hedemann, Occy and Luke Egan in the Pipe Masters and jumped to a year-end finish of 49th. In 1988 he moved to 39th. Going into Europe this year, he was ranked 27th.

Where Poto loves to surf most of all, apart from Tahiti, is in Hawaii. This is where all the strengths in that big cat-like style come jumping out. Poto describes the difference in his surfing: “I was stoked to turn pro in Hawaii my first year because my home break Ta’apuna is exactly like Pipe, and when I’m inside the barrel I think about my home break. Like I know already how to do it. Even if I’m deep. For other guys who don’t surf hollow waves, they go to Hawaii, they eat it. They don’t know which wave is closing out. But me, I surf reef breaks so I know which waves is closing out at Sunset and Pipe. Not Waimea yet,” he adds. Waimea spooks him. “But I learn.”

At such times his love for surfing shines out. There is a touch of the hippie in Poto, as there is a touch of the spoiled youngest son; but more than anything he is a grommet, still, and that is never a bad thing.

No, Poto is not your average pro surfer. But apart from the obvious differences—the power surfing, the easy-going nature, the language, the unaffected cool—it is hard to say exactly how his island existence affects him. He loves home but does not seem attached to a point that would get in the way of his career. “I love where I am from," Poto says. "But only time I really miss home is when the waves are small, not even breaking. The water is freezing—that’s when I miss Ta’apuna.” He laughs.

Meanwhile, his father has told him to take the climb up the ladder slowly and carefully, without getting frantic. It is good advice for someone like Poto.

“I don’t think surf-star is what he’s aspiring to,” says Fitz. “I think he’s aspiring to travel the world and surf and make a living out of it. If Poto's not a surf star it wouldn’t worry him. He’d just go back to Tahiti and surf perfect waves."

Competitively, his only problem seems to be that he has too much respect for his peers. “He does have a mental block with man-on-man surfing," Fitz agrees. "He's still in awe of Potts and Tom and that. That’s his background. I think he’ll overcome it.

I repeat this to Poto, and I don't know if it's a language thing, or he knows what Fitz is getting at and doesn't really give a shit. “I know everybody on tour and everybody like me,” says Poto, nodding, as another huge grin cracks his face. “Everybody is my friend!”

[Photos: Jeff Hornbaker, John Seaton Callahan]

"POTO: VETEA DAVID" - PROFILE BY NICK CARROLL (1989)

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