Where’s Steve? I don’t like it. he should be here by now!
Bali Strickland recounting the words of fellow On The Rock team member, Dave Sparkes. After two weeks of hurrying up and waiting for the Maui event to run and losing his mind in the process, Sparkesy had adopted a pet cockroach, which he named Steve. Every night Steve would turn up out on the porch, Sparkesy would pat him and talk to him about his day. On the last day though Steve never showed, and Sparkesy was freaking, thinking Steve had been on the wrong end of a can of bug spray.
In a share house with 10 guys, you leave your room – and your spotlessly clean ensuite toilet – vacant at your own peril, as Taylor Knox found out.
When Taylor left to go back home to California for Thanksgiving a few days back, he made the mistake of leaving his dunny door unlocked. The next day Aussie grom, Stuey Kennedy, who’s been sleeping on the lounge downstairs, heard some knocking on the back door – figuratively speaking. With all the toilets downstairs being occupied and Stuey at turtle’s head by this stage, he bolted upstairs to Taylor’s private throne.
In a house full of grubs, Taylor is the guy who likes to do it with a bit of class. You could perform surgery in Taylor’s room – everything’s in order, his clothes are folded, there’s not a grain of sand on the floor. After almost two decades of team houses, Taylor’s earned a room on the top floor and the right to keep it squeaky clean.
Stuey’s bolted up the stairs, perched on the throne, and unleashed hell. Life was suddenly good again… right up until the point where he tried to flush his little mate away. To Stuey’s horror, the toilet suddenly started backing up, right to the rim. He’d blocked it. Another flush would see water spilling out into Taylor’s room, so Stuey did the thing that came logically to him – he went downstairs and fetched a stick. For the next two hours he poked and prodded and tried to pulverise the offending Mars bar so it would flush, but all to no avail. Frustrated and without answers, Stuey walked away.
Two days later, Taylor pulled up out the front, walked up the stairs, dropped his bags, and walked into the toilet…
Feature Story
ANATOMY OF A DAY AT PIPE
Several moments that mattered today…. and several more that didn’t.
5.45am // Mick Fanning wakes up, walks downstairs in his pyjamas with little ducks all over them and makes a cup of coffee. Out the front of the house looks good, smaller than yesterday, six-to-eight maybe, and really clean.
5.58am // Mick jumps in his car and drives up to the contest at Sunset. It’s off. There’s more swell coming, a lot of swell, and there’s only one day of the contest to run. It’s an RDO, a freesurfing day.
6.00am // Hedgey materialises for his early and makes fresh hog tracks up the beach. The swell on the high tide was lapping the back of the beach, under the windows of the house, so Hog’s footprints are the first ones in the sand.
6.20am // The Curl team house is swarming with crew. Brady, Owen, Davey Cathels, Dunny and Jean De Silva are all waxing up. Wilko turns up via Starbucks. Cathels’ boardies go missing and there’s a Spanish Inquisition. “I just put ‘em down right there one minute ago.” There’s a lot of finger pointing.
6.35am // Taylor Knox, just out of bed: “Morning, grom.”
Mick Fanning: “Morning, grom.”
Taylor: “Couple out there?”
Mick: “Couple out at Pipedoor.”
6.50am // Mick: “You watch, I’m gonna run down there, paddle straight out through Off The Wall, and get a set on the head.”
6.52am // Mick gets a set on the head paddling out at Off The Wall. Mick has been really selective with his surfs out the front of the house. He won’t surf with crowds, and has been riding the early a lot. He picks his windows between the crowds, the wind, and he won’t surf too long.
7.15am // The sun makes it up over the Pupukea escarpment.
7.20am // Taylor gets his first wave at Backdoor… and it’s a good one.
7.30 - 7.45 // Nothing to report as the author went to Starbucks. Even at 7.30am the smell of fried chicken overpowers the smell of coffee. I felt my arteries clogging just thinking about someone eating fried chicken for breakfast.
7.50am // There’s 53 guys on
the Pipe-Backdoor peak, 31 between Aints and Off The Wall. All the Pipe
specialists are out there – O’Brien, Garcia, Dorian et al. It’s pretty
thick out there, some people saying it’s the busiest they’ve ever seen
it.
9.20am // The boys are all in
for breakfast. The previous day Pancho dropped around a heap of
avocados the size of basketballs from the tree at his place. Wilko
bought a huli chicken from Foodland, and the boys destroy the bird with
avocado.
10.15am // Davey Cathels comes
in after four hours. “I didn’t even get barrelled!” Laughing, he tells
the story of how Claire Bevilacqua burned Julian Wilson out there.
10.51am // Matt Wilko: “I wish there was a sneaky left out there for Wilko.”
Owen: “There’s nothing sneaky about this place.”
11.06am // Two young ladies –
who the boys have been trying their best with for the past week – walk
past. The boys all wave, and the balcony almost gives way as everyone
leans over and watches them walk off down the beach.
11.17am // Pancho Sullivan
turns up. He’s been busy scoping out a rental property up at Rocky
Point. While all the visiting Curl guys only have to worry about
surfing and where they’re going for lunch, Panch, who lives just up the
top of the hill at Pupukea, still has everyday stuff to do, like
lawnmowing and hanging with his kids.
11.32am // Pancho unleashes two of his trademark Panch-back turns on the one poor wave. The gallery claps their approval.
11.41am // The wind comes up.
“It’ll puff trades for 15 minutes, then it’ll swing right around,” says
Mick. “It won’t be much good this afternoon.”
12.20am // The winds swings on
cue, and Mick leaves for a Curl fashion shoot down the road. Out the
front the show is over. There’s only 20 guys in the water.
12.42pm // The place cleans
out. Wilko has grabbed his second Starbucks coffee for the day – “Do
you think they have rehab for Starbucks addicts?”. Wilko, Brady and
Jean de Silva go and surf Jockos. Taylor Knox is left on the lounge
watching US football, frothing that his San Diego Chargers are playing
tomorrow, with the game being telecast in 3D. It’s unsure whether he’s
more excited about the game, or the prospect of a fresh, bruising swell
that will be rolling in overnight. //SEAN DOHERTY
The Blog
OWEN’S BLOG
Owen’s experience at 6ft Pipe today: it’s easier to catch a 6ft
wave at 12ft Pipe. This morning I paddled out at Pipe only to realise I
was out there with every local and Top 44 chargers, plus other chargers
like Anthony Walsh and Shane Dorian, plus every grom who wants to make
a name for themselves – including me, ha ha – then you got the chicks,
mal riders, and stand-up paddleboard riders! Yes it was a zoo out there
today.
Speaking of zoo, we had the full front row view the other day.
We’d been surfing Haleiwa and we were getting changed in the car park and this woman has pulled up in her van, screaming out. She’d come screaming around the corner in this stupid van, doing the full screechy with a dog in the front seat. The dog was sh*tting itself. She’s locked up the brakes and left the car in the middle of the road in the car park and jumped out and run into the men’s toilets, screaming. We’re going what the hell is this chick doing? She was off her head on something. We hear her screaming in there at some guy, we reckon it was her dealer, and he’s come bolting out of the toilets and has gone running across the park with her chasing him on foot. While this is happening her car is blocking about a thousand cars in the car park and everyone is just losing it. Someone has got in her car to move it and she’s seen it and U-turned, just going psycho, thinking someone was stealing her car. She’s eventually got back in her car and has just gone crazy. She’s almost backed into this huge Hawaiian guy’s car, then driven at full speed across the median strip in the car park, bottoming out the car, spinning her wheels and burning out. Then she’s just driven off down the street screechying. We just looked at each other and gone what the f*ck just happened? We’d been full silent while it was happening in case she spotted us and come after us instead. I think she would have killed us.
Narrabeen grom Davey Cathels searching for the OTW house thief.
Who is the OTW house thief? For the past three weeks, much needed surf
accessories have been going missing on a frighteningly regular basis.
Every house member seems to be losing fins, legropes, fin keys,
boardies, rash vests and wax. Today his run came to an end. Early this
morning, Davey Cathels rocked up with his boardshorts and a vest and
sat them on the ground, and after a short pre-surf piss a minute later,
Davey walked out and discovered that both items were missing. Vowing to
find the culprit, he then stole Stuey’s boardies and paddled out the
front, not looking for waves, but for the guy wearing his boardies.
Almost instantly the culprit was in Davey’s radar, wearing what looked
like the very same vest and boardshorts that both belonged to the angry
Narrabeenian. The culprit is now in OTW jail in solitary confinement in
the basement, with only Griggsy’s herbal organic gourmet super
spirulina juice to sustain himself. // OWEN WRIGHT
