There’s Gerry Lopez, Mr Pipeline himself, taking off late on a monster wave on Hawaii’s North Shore like he’s just punched in to start his shift at work.
For many surfers, riding such waves is a life-defining moment: the Banzai Pipeline — and its treacherous lava rock just below the surface — is considered one of the most dangerous waves in the world.
Not for Lopez.
Throughout the documentary that tells the story of his unique life, grainy footage shows Lopez nonchalantly slotting into the barrel before it calmly pushes him back out.
He leans back like he’s resting on a bar, wipes his nose then runs a casual finger along its face. He makes it look so easy.
But as suggested in the title of the movie — The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez — sometimes you must take the good with the bad.
The legendary surfer Gerry Lopez clocks into work at Pipeline.Credit:YouTube
“The trouble is nobody’s seen movies of me learning how to surf the Pipeline,” Lopez tells the Herald. “Nobody sees all the wipeouts and dues I had to pay to be able to have some success there.”
Like the time he wiped out and fell directly onto one of the fins of his surfboard. Lopez knew straight away it wasn’t good and when he clutched at the gaping wound four fingers slipped inside.
Gerry LopezCredit:John Veage
He literally tore himself a new one. A few centimetres to the right and it could have been more serious.
He was rushed to hospital and, as he lay on a bed, he farted and blood came out of the wound, which meant he had internal bleeding. A colostomy bag was attached for a period of time.
“The Pipeline makes you pay,” he continues. “I paid in many ways and that was just one of them. That was a good one. I went to a doctor who was an expert in treating a number of injuries from surfing of that nature. A lot of them went right up the Khyber [Pass]. That’s when you’re wearing diapers for the rest of your life. For the length of my relationship with Pipeline, I got off pretty light.”
Lopez, 73, is talking to me via Zoom from Kelly Slater’s surf ranch in the middle of farm fields in California, 160km from the ocean.
As surf locations around the world become more crammed and chaotic with new surfers, including Pipeline, the sport has been forced to evolve through necessity.
“I don’t like crowds,” Lopez says in his gentle Hawaiian tone. “That’s why I’m surfing in a river.”
On the list of surfing’s pioneers, Lopez sits somewhere near the top.
When he wasn’t taming giant North Shore waves, he was shaping short boards under his iconic Lightning Bolt brand, which became the most popular board in the sport. As explained in the documentary, surfers would see the distinctive bolt on his board and offer to buy it off him.
In the 1970s, Lopez and Newcastle’s Peter McCabe ventured to the world’s first surf camp, Indonesia’s G-Land, and put the remote break on the proverbial map.
“I have a close connection with Australia and surfing,” Lopez says. “Nat Young, Terry Fitzgerald, Wayne Lynch are all friends … Peter McCabe and I spent more time together in close proximity riding waves and on the beach in G-Land than any other Australian surfer.”
But the documentary, which is directed by Stacy Peralta (Dogtown and Z-Boys), is more than just a hagiography of Lopez’s life.
’I missed a really good swell and I beat myself up and said, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to be …. missing waves because I’m hungover’
Gerry Lopez
It explores his ruthless desire to win, especially at Pipeline, and his struggle with himself. The yin and the yang.
Discovering yoga didn’t just help his surfing but calmed his mind and allowed him to conquer Hawaii’s biggest waves.
In 1977, he woke up late after a night of partying and was furious with himself about missing the swell. He hasn’t touched alcohol or drugs since.
“I missed a really good swell and I beat myself up and said, ‘That’s it. I don’t want to be in this position again where I’m missing waves because I’m hungover’,” Lopez says. “A lot of times, you can’t make it to a swell for one reason or another. Missing it because you were partying too much is a dumb reason.”
Soul man … Gerry Lopez
Lopez’s spiritual connection with surfing is laid bare throughout the movie. In one scene, he wakes up alone in a bamboo hut in G-Land, looking out at perfect sets rolling in.
“I’m more connected to surfing now than ever,” he says.
“Any surfer starts to examine themselves and their connection to surfing and it becomes more interesting until at some point it becomes all-consuming. I wouldn’t say I understand it. But I am continually intrigued and amazed by how deep surfing is. It’s like an onion, man … I look at my career: the first 20 years was just a test to see if I was really interested. It’s been quite a journey.”
It’s a journey that doesn’t end. In one of the final scenes, Lopez is out on the water on a foilboard, failing miserably to stand up.
“This is gold, man,” Peralta told Lopez when he came in.
“What good is that?” Lopez grumbled, puzzled.
“You’ll see.”
The final shot shows Lopez finally mastering it, getting to his feet and riding the waves like he’s back at Pipeline on a Lightning Bolt board.
As Lopez says: “Surfing is an ongoing, endless and relentless learning process.”
For tickets to the special Q&A screenings with Gerry Lopez and Stacy Peralta next week, or to find out more about The Yin & Yang of Gerry Lopez, visit Patagonia.com.au/gerrylopez.
