Brian Lam

Not really. That’s Gerry Lopez, the famous surfer who helped pioneer surfing at Hawaii’s vicious Pipeline break. As you can see, he’s quite relaxed doing it. On top of his skill, he attributed his survival and success to choosing the right waves and having the right equipment, namely, more shorter, more narrow boards like the ones he used to make with Lightning Bolts on them. Now Gerry lives in Oregon, addicted to snowboarding, surfing the colder breaks in the Pacific Northwest. You have to wonder why anyone would move from Hawaii to Oregon, but I’m sure he has his reasons.

Lopez is also a Patagonia Ambassador (the clothing company, not the place.) I read his book they published, called Surf is Where you Find It and learned many things but one practical thing, which is to never take the first wave in the set. That’s because many greedy people crowding the line will take the first wave, which then clears a path for you; it also means that you’ll have fewer waves to paddle through when you go back out. I love learning little obvious things that were not obvious before. At the Tin Shed, Patagonia’s site of stories from their athletes and adventurers, Gerry tells a humbling story about how people resented him for taking waves in Oregon, not realizing they were surfing with a legend. So he took some waves of poorer quality in order to have more space and to surf with, as he described it, aloha. Gerry shapes boards for Patagonia, but also, under his own name.