I first met Andy St. Onge on Oahu’s North Shore in March of 1994. At that time Andy was an up-and-coming member of the “Sunset Beach Underground.” I had just received my doctorate and was on my way to Cambodia to investigate and document Khmer Rouge atrocities for the first time. The previous two winters I had rented a room from Tim Russell, a hard charging, big hearted, old school Aussie. It was through Tim that I first met some of the Sunset Beach Underground and their mentor, the legendary big wave rider and shaper, Craig “Owl” Chapman. They all surfed Sunset religiously and if you were staying at Tim’s, you were going to do the same.
When I ran into Owl at Di Amico’s restaurant on that 1994 trip and told him that I was on my way to Cambodia, he shrieked, “Cambodia! Cambodia! Are you crazy?” Then he pointed to a story in the Honolulu Advertiser that I had already read and made my blood run cold. Not only was the Cambodian military fighting the Khmer Rouge near the Thai border, the genocidal Maoists had just kidnapped an American aid worker, and announced that they would begin kidnapping “long nosed” westerners as a matter of policy. Worse, less than a week before my departure, King Norodom Sihanouk was warning foreigners that he could provide “no safety guarantee to travelers without a big escort.”
I swallowed my fear, told Owl that I would stop by his house the next morning, and decided to go for a surf at Kammieland (the surf spot next to Sunset Beach) to calm my nerves. The waves were small and clean, but inconsistent. The only other person out surfing was a handsome, fit, patrician looking haole who wore a hood. He did not acknowledge my presence, paddled circles around me on a gunny mid length Owl Chapman surfboard, and caught every single set wave that came in. I went in dejected and thought to myself, “What a dick!”
The next morning I went to Owl’s house and as I was going up the stairs, I noticed someone following me. I stopped and turned around to see that it was none other than the hooded patrician. When he asked me where I was going, I looked at him like I wanted to kill him, and answered him with one word, “Owl’s.” We were sizing each other up when Owl opened the door, greeted me, invited us in for coffee, and introduced me to Andy St. Onge. It was a fitting start to a tumultuous 27-year friendship between two very stubborn and uncompromising people.
Peter Maguire and Andy St. Onge, North Shore, 1994 Photo: Peter Maguire collection
It turned out that Andy was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii and hoped to get his doctorate in philosophy. While I was the senior scholar, there was no question that he was the senior big wave rider. Originally from Boston, Andy had attended some of America’s finest prep schools, and was on a path to Harvard or similar until he was derailed by surfing, pot, and the Grateful Dead. While his classmates were climbing various ladders to success, Andy migrated first to California. True to form, he did not bother with Malibu or San Onofre, and instead went straight to the treacherous reefs of Big Sur and was not dissuaded by the region’s Hatfield-McCoy like localism. When it came time for college, Andy went to Hawaii and began a long apprenticeship with Owl Chapman who taught him the nuances of Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay. He took a semester abroad, but did not go to Paris or Berlin. He went to Easter Island and surfed the treacherous open ocean peak at Papa Tangaroa — alone.
“Sunset Andy” rode big boards, stayed out for hours, and surfed with a calculated aggression that left him with only friends and enemies. His surfing life at Sunset was always very dramatic and he never wanted for conflict in and out of the water. Andy also earned the respect of some of the heaviest of the heavy—Junior Boy Moepono, Roger Ericson, and one of the world’s best unknown big wave riders, Walter Eric Haas. It was Haas, a Waikiki eccentric who once surfed giant Waimea in his high school football uniform, who pushed Andy’s big wave surfing to the next level.
Eric Haas surfing Waimea Bay in a football uniform, 2002 Photo: Unknown
After our initial standoff, Andy and I hit it off. I spent the week before I left for Cambodia with Andy happily distracted, surfing Sunset. His knowledge of the vast, tricky lineup was deep and he shared it generously. Ever the empiricist, Andy also decided to test my martial arts skills. He laced up his old leather boxing gloves and very quickly became a true believer. I taught him the basics of Jeet Kune Do and old-fashioned Gracie Jiu Jitsu. With his insatiable appetite for conflict and caustic mouth, this handful of private lessons really helped him over the years.
Andy St. Onge v. Peter Maguire, North Shore, 1994 Photo: Peter Maguire collection
Guns, knives, martial arts, evasive driving, sure I could do all of it. However, when Andy handed me his 11’ pintail, and said, “You could do it,” I grew slightly sick to my stomach. I shook my head no. Part of me was scared of real Hawaiian 20 foot waves, but fear had never stopped me before. Fear was not the reason--it was mental energy. I knew how much mental energy true big wave surfing took. I never slept well when my Radio Shack weather radio announced the arrival of a giant swell. I did not have the mental space to board Andy’s crazy train because I had already booked a seat on a crazy train of my own.
Truth be told, although I had received my Ph.D with the highest honors, I felt hollow and fraudulent, like a boxing commentator who had never been in the ring. I was writing about modern conflict as a civilian leading a secure life at an Ivy League university. Twenty-eight and a product of the softest generation in American history, what did I know about conflict resolution beyond what I had read? To teach undergraduates about how the world should be without addressing that rapidly changing world on its own terms was to perpetuate a familiar cycle of fraudulence. That is why instead of going to the American Historical Association’s annual convention to land an Ivy League job, I went to Cambodia.
That first trip to Cambodia was eye opening and when I returned to the North Shore a few months later, I was a different person. Andy’s black and white stridency about everything from surfing, to music, to food, to philosophy got on my nerves. I took to calling him “Cotton Mather” after the Boston Puritan leader who presided over the Salem witch trials. So began my tumultuous friendship with “Sunset Andy.” While I fulfilled my goals of documenting atrocities and futilely attempted to right the world’s wrongs, Andy surfed giant waves with the same single-minded determination. What follows is his first person account of the craziest wave he has ever ridden.
“You tremble, my body? You would tremble a lot more if you knew where I am taking you.” — General Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne.
Author on a more manageable day — riding the same Owl Chapman 11’7” single fin pintail that he rode the day of this story. Photo: Andy St. Onge collection
There are good days, big days, scary days, and crazy days. And then there are days that are all that and more. For me, there is one surf session that stands above all the others. During it, I rode the craziest wave of my life and lived to tell this tale.
In March 2010, it was big. Not giant, but easily 15’-18’ with light Kona winds. Sunset Beach was closed out and washing through from the Third Reef. Waimea Bay was crowded, junky, onshore, bumpy, and not appealing at all. Outside Kaunalu, also known as “Phantoms,” was working and looking good. This outer reef sits nearly a mile out to sea and on this day, giant A-Frame peaks were standing tall, throwing top-to-bottom, and walling up across the reef.
Kaunalu Photo: Andy St. Onge collection
Located just walking distance from my house, Kaunalu is a very serious wave —People disappear out there. In 1993, Jim Broach paddled out on a big windy day, never to be seen again. No body. No board. Nothing. Gone. The guys who paddled out with him — Boogs Van Der Polder and Rusty Moran — two intrepid Aussies who were some of the better big wave riders at that time — barely survived. When they made it back to shore, they packed their bags, and split. I never saw, or even heard about them again. I know other surfers — better surfers than me — men I respect and admire that have sworn off Kaunalu after near-death experiences there. One Hawaiian surfing legend told me: “I promised to God that if he let me live I’d never paddle out there again.” And he never has.
When I walked down my street to check the surf, I saw that Kaunalu was overrun by jet skis and the surfers they tow. Noisy and smelly, jet skis and mechanized tag-team surfing have never appealed to me. I was amping to surf. After walking down to check it for the fourth time in an hour and pacing around my house and yard like a maniac, I decided to paddle out solo. It felt obligatory, a matter of pride, principle, and fate.
I grabbed my trusty 11’7” Owl Chapman pintail, tied a leash to it, waxed up, stuck a swim fin in the back of my shorts, and made my way down to the beach like I had for more than half my life. It looked relatively clean — conditions are crucial when you’re surfing the outer reefs. Too much wind doesn’t just make it more challenging, the risk level rises exponentially with every knot. This day, however, light Kona winds were grooming the peaks, and plumes of offshore spray were misting 50’-60’ above the blue Leviathans. Glorious! Even better, all of the jet skis had vanished and the lineup was empty. Stoke! This was my opportunity. The Fates were smiling upon me because fortuna, as Machiavelli told us, is a woman, and she favors the brave and impetuous. My timing was perfect…or so it seemed. . . .
Kaunalu Lineup on a moderate 15’ day. Photo: Andy St. Onge collection
Little did I know that while I was pacing around my house, a giant clean-up set had washed all the jet skis in. One of them had been caught inside at “Twisted Sister,” the horrifying inside corner of the reef at Sunset Beach, and their watercraft demolished by massive waves. After that, all of the tow surfers had called it a day. Discretion is the better part of valor in conditions as hairy as this.
Yet, I was totally oblivious to these facts as I walked passed Dylan Aoki, my fireman neighbor. “Be careful out there!” he said, “There was just a big set — it’s gnarly!” “Yeah, man! Thanks,” I replied robotically because I didn’t really hear him. I was too focused on my objective — hitting the water and paddling the mile out to the peak — to hear him. In all honesty, I was now wishing that I had someone to surf with.
Once I got to the water’s edge, it did look gnarly — ominous and foreboding. I now felt it in my gut. Of course, it is always best, and more fun, to surf with at least one other person, not to mention a lot easier psychologically and safer. However, my wingmen Eric Haas and Davis Knowles weren’t around, so I was on my own. The truth is that you are always on your own out there in Big Water a mile out in the ocean. There’s really not much anyone can do for you when the shit gets real. Solo mio.
In big surf — whether it’s Sunset Beach, Waimea Bay, or the outer reefs — just the paddle out is thrilling, challenging, and dangerous. It takes a solid navigational strategy and an execution of it to get out unscathed. This is the first test. The great big wave rider Roger Erickson once told me, “You gotta be loose, move with the water, alert, and aware. It’s a process of give and take, be a Willow Tree.” The rip current was roaring out to sea like a fast-moving river. This is the first real indicator. When I paddled into the raging slipstream, it felt like a Class V white-water rapid, the moguls of chop were easily 6’- 8’ tall. I made sure to give “Twisted Sister” a wide berth, as that is where one can easily get caught inside and destroyed like the jet ski had just minutes earlier.
My mind was racing with exhilaration and anticipation and the butterflies in my stomach felt like bats. I could tell by how fast I was moving out to sea in the rip, how the water looked, and the energy I felt — this was going to be full-on. As I passed “Twisted Sister,” a set unloaded, went square, and spit hard like a massive cannon-shot. I thought out loud: “It’s big, man. Bigger than it looked from the beach!” Again, I secretly wished I had a partner . . .
I paddled way outside and the state of the ocean was just breathtaking. Truly awesome. Even on a normal 15-foot day, the grand expanse of the Kaunalu lineup is spellbinding. It is almost a square mile of raw, wild ocean, raging currents, mountainous peaks, and gaping, spitting barrels that could easily consume a Greyhound Bus. From where I sat, I couldn’t see the beach anymore. It took everything I had to get my bearings and orientation. I was way the fuck out there on the Northernmost corner of the North Shore — all alone. I was looking at the backs of 15’-18’-plus waves (30’ – 40’ faces). The giant freight-trains were stacking up from outside Kaunalu and walling up across the reef. I also noticed that the channel, my safe harbor, was now gone. “Now that’s unusual,” I thought to myself.
I could see all the way from Haleiwa to Turtle Bay. I used the big white, golf-ball satellites on the hillside that we call “Epcot Center” to get my nautical bearings. I also noticed that the channel between Kaunalu and Backyards Sunset was also closing out now! This was not a good sign because this is the deepest natural submarine canyon on the entire North Shore, easily 60’-80’ deep. On top of that, there were multiple whirlpools of water sucking and twisting in ways I had never seen before or since. It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “A Descent Into The Maelstrom”: “Here the vast bed of waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied convulsion-heaving, boiling, hissing-gyrating in gigantic and innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except in precipitous descents . . .”
In all my years in the ocean, I have never seen anything like it, now I was scared. No question: I was in way over my head. “I should not be out here,” I said aloud as I was overcome with the empty, lonely, undeniable, and inescapable feeling of despair that you can’t indulge for long or it will paralyze you. I don’t often get or feel like this in the ocean. My fear is usually overpowered by fascination and focus. Schopenhauer best described this state as, “pure will-less knowing,” a time and place when, “Happiness and unhappiness have disappeared, we are no longer individual; the individual is forgotten; we are only pure subject of knowledge; we are only that one eye of the world which looks out from.” Now, I didn’t have the time or luxury for such philosophical indulgences because I was terrified. Furthermore, because of the gravity of the situation, I had crossed into a zone where, as Schopenhauer put it, “neither joy nor grieving is carried with us beyond that boundary.”
In other words: Think!Get a plan of action fast! Swimming, or even paddling in on a day like this — impossible. If you get caught inside, of course, you will lose your board, but it won’t matter at that point because a 60’ face wave will bury you under tons of water and push you into the dark abyss where you will drown. Remember, this was years before inflatable vests, jet ski overwatch, and team sport big wave surfing. I had only one thought: “Get the fuck out of here!” But how? . . . There was only one way in and that was to catch a wave—a giant set wave.
At that moment, the horizon shifted and I spotted a giant set coming. Every atom of my being was now focused only on survival. As the monstrous blue Leviathans marched toward me, all I could do was paddle as hard and fast as I could to meet them and please — Dear God! — don’t get caught inside. But caught inside it looked like I was, as I stroked up the vertical face of the first wave. It was already feathering and starting to throw when I just got over the top, then free-fell airborne down the back of the wave. The impact of the board reconnecting and hitting the water almost knocked the wind out of me. When I slapped down, I did not miss a stroke because of the horrifying vision I had had in that airborne instant. As I had come over the crest of the first behemoth, I saw at least ten more waves stacked behind it, each bigger than the one before it. I was doomed.
But my body’s intelligence and instinct overrode my desperate and pathetic mind. I did the only thing that I could and paddled like my life depended on it. Again, I found myself pulling with everything I had to get over the next vertical wave that was much bigger than a telephone pole, more like a drive-in movie screen. It too was feathering in both directions for what seemed like a mile. At that instant, a voice inside said: “You can catch this wave.” In that nanosecond, I realized that not only could I catch this wave, but if I didn’t, I would most certainly get caught by the one behind it, or the one behind it, and die. Although I was already totally winded and running out of oxygen, I whipped my board around and once again began to paddle like my life depended on it and it did. . . .
I teetered for a moment in the lip, but clawed my way over the ledge, and miracle of miracles, caught the wave. The little ledge I was on gave me a surprisingly smooth and easy entry. I got to my feet, stood up in a low crouch — then the wave jacked, flared, and went vertical. I was going straight down as I plowed into and over another ledge as the wave jacked again and lifted even harder. Now my board was disconnected from the face of the wave, I was freefalling, and not even the tip of my fin was in the water. I reconnected with the wave smoothly, did not lose any momentum, and the voice inside spoke again: “There’s no going right or left. Just make the drop!”
This drop never seemed to end. It was as if I were in suspended animation because the wave was pulling me up the face as fast as I was dropping down the face. It was an experience in hydrodynamic physics I have never experienced before or since. When I finally reached the bottom of the wave, I knew that it was going to close-out, and the probably destroy me. My board was at maximum velocity, full hull-speed 45 mph, maybe faster, combined or compounded by the mass and the velocity of the wave itself. I was going as fast as one can go on a surfboard. My peripheral vision told me that the entire universe would soon close out all around me and to prepare for the worst.
Next, I was utterly consumed by an explosion of cascading whitewater, a literal avalanche. Yet somehow, I was still on my feet. After I weathered the explosion, I immediately leapt down to my belly, grabbed my board’s rails, and got ready for a whitewater adventure. A second explosion detonated and blasted behind me like a Hydrogen Bomb that blew me and my board into the air. I was still inside a mountain of whitewater and at one point even lost hold of the board. Somehow, I reconnected and landed. When I was blown way out in front of the deluge, I jumped to my feet again as the wave moved into the next section of the reef and began to reform.
The massive wall of whitewater morphed into a titanic blue wall that stretched out before me past Kaena Point and into Eternity. It was beautiful and sublime — I was surfing! And it was fun! Now I charted a high line course across the upper part of the wave and flew at Mach 2 in full forward trim. I assumed that I had made the transition from the Outside Reef to the middle section which sits several hundred yards inside and in the middle of Kaunalu Bay. Unbelievably, and I didn’t know it at the time, I was streaking across the outside section of Backyards Sunset Beach. This meant that I had taken off at Kaunalu and miraculously, against all odds, ridden all the way across the channel. At this point my fear and anxiety had metamorphosed into PURE STOKE as I strobed across the giant, perfect, blue wall.
In the approaching distance, I saw a big tubing left coming towards me that was throwing top-to-bottom, and prepared to straighten out. I dropped to the bottom of the wave, got low in anticipation of the final close-out, and aimed for the sanctuary of the beach. I felt the water getting shallower and could now see the reef whizzing beneath me. Where I caught the wave, which now seemed like a lifetime ago, was probably 60’ deep, and now the water was maybe 15’ deep, and getting shallower fast. Although there was a torrential side-shore rip running because of all the water trying to get back out to sea, when the wave closed out for the final time, I laid back down on my board, and knew I was going to make it to the beach!
As the whitewater backed off, I stood up again for a final time, and directed myself toward shore. As I did so, I looked at all the houses and thought to myself: “Boy, they sure have built-up and developed V-Land!” But it wasn’t V-Land I was looking at — it was Sunset Point! I had traveled nearly a mile down the coast. I almost fell off my board in shock! At that moment, I realized that I had ridden a wave from Kaunaluto Sunset! Sunset Beach and Kaunalu are two distinct reef systems that are separated and clearly divided by a huge channel, the deepest on the North Shore. I caught this wave about a mile out to sea and rode for roughly a mile and a half in less than a minute. Now I was coming in at Sunset. This was beyond incredible — IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE!
Black line shows the distance I rode from Kaunalu to Sunset Beach
I was dumbfounded as I steered to shore, and when I stepped off my board and my feet sank into the deep sand I was filled with an indescribable joy and sense of accomplishment. As I collected my wits, I spotted two guys walking down the beach with fire engine red Owl Chapman single fin pintail guns not unlike mine. It was Kalani Chapman, Owl’s nephew, and his roommate on their way down the beach to paddle out at Kaunalu. They stared at me incredulously and asked: “What were you doing out at Sunset!?!” Mind you, Sunset Beach was totally closed out and washing through from the way, way outside. “I wasn’t surfing Sunset,” I replied, “I just caught a wave at Kaunalu and washed down here . . .” I barely got the words out, knowing how ridiculous — how IMPOSSIBLE— what I just said sounded. These are both veteran big wave riders. Kalani (a pro surfer and Pipeline Master) was born and raised on the sand where we stood. He looked at me like I was crazy, but he also knew me well enough to know that I can surf, and maybe, just maybe, it was true.
We walked together back up the beach towards my house. The profound sense of relief I felt was probably the onset of what the shrinks call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Like surviving a plane crash, a nuclear blast, an avalanche, a bear attack, or something similarly extreme and deadly, I was still in disbelief. I was slowly becoming acutely aware of the severity and gravity of everything that I had just experienced.
As we made our way past the beachfront houses, we saw the remains of the jet ski that had been destroyed less than an hour earlier. Rounding the corner to Kaunalu Bay, I gazed to sea and it looked treacherous. My friends looked at me and said, “You were out there?!” I honestly couldn’t believe it myself. It looked death-defying really. Suffice it to say, they didn’t paddle out.
When we got to the spot where I had paddled out, there was my neighbor, Dylan the fireman, in more or less the same spot I left him, a veritable lifetime ago for me or so it seemed. He looked at me like I was a ghost. Which, in a manner of speaking, I was, or should have been. “What happened to you?” he asked, “I saw you paddle out and then you just disappeared. I thought you might have drowned!” Once more, I attempted, in vain, to describe what I had just survived, but couldn’t because it was impossible. I don’t think he believed me because it was IMPOSSIBLE. But it happened. I know I paddled out. Dylan saw me. And I know something happened more or less like I have just described.
I wasn’t just tired, I was mentally and physically exhausted. Totally drained and feeling strangely disconnected from myself and surroundings. I wanted to sleep. After a warm shower and something to drink, I lay down on my bed and crashed.
A couple of hours later, now early evening, I awoke. Startled. I shot up in bed with the full recognition and comprehension that I was extremely fortunate, yes lucky, to be alive. I was in utter disbelief. After some beers and dinner, I gave my shaper, Owl Chapman a call and told him what happened as best I could. He listened and then declared: “I’ve done that!” It was actually very reassuring to hear him say that. It meant that it was possible after all. I wasn’t crazy, because Owl had done it too! But then, in the next sentence, he said, “I did it on a windsurfer in 25’ surf by myself.” That is very different because he had a sail, was powered by the wind, and had a harness and a boom to assist him while covering that grand expanse of water. Nevertheless, he did it, and he explained to me how.
It turned out that I caught a giant wave during the flood of a high tide and all of the ocean’s forces had combined to push me from East to West. A rare — once in a lifetime — but plausible scenario. Not only could it be done in theory, it has been done twice, once by Owl and once by me.
I must concede that to this day —as I type these words — I am haunted by the memory of that experience. My blood runs cold every time I think about it. For years afterwards, I had ominous and foreboding nightmares about everything that could have gone wrong. What if I got caught inside by that set? What if I hadn’t made the drop? What if I had been blown off my board? I would have been lost at sea and would not have been the first to disappear at Kaunalu . . .
One inference that can be drawn from this tale is that my board saved my life. No doubt about it. It’s interesting to note that, over the years, Owl often remarked to me in the shaping room as he hand-shaped my guns: “Kid, this thing’s gonna save your life one day.” Fuck’n A Right, Owl.Mahalo Nui Loa!
