|
High Water DVD by Dana Brown
The Autumn Sun melts into the Ocean while gentile, inviting waves lap at the shore. No traffic today on Kam Highway; kids of all shapes and costumes trick or treat through the neighborhood facing the beach like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The laughter and sugar high jinks are interrupted by a scratchy radio weather report... "And in weather, a huge artic flow looks to be changing things on the North Shore..."
Like it will six to ten times each winter when enormous storms form in the Artic and reach hurricane force in the icy water between Alaska and Russia, the North Pacific wakes up angry. The concussion is like a sledge hammer smashing a gong, vibrations radiating across 2000 miles of open ocean, setting up a collision course with the lead pin in nature's bowling alley -One tropical island with a reef-lined shore that will greet the Artic's fury as it suddenly rises in shallow water growing from 10 to 15 to 25' feet high. Jam dropping waves that have turned fifty-foot schooners into matchsticks, wiped away houses and roads and pulled people from the shoreline never to be seen again. Waves that have drowned favorite sons. Waves that shake the Earth and rattle pictures off the bedroom wall. Waves that don't even seem possible.
Welcome to the North Shore of Oahu - the 7 mile miracle - surfing's Xanadu. A freak of nature that is long considered the ultimate test for surfers. Six decades ago, it was the rite of passage for a select few. Then a few more, and a few more. An image that created a fashion; a fashion that became an industry of shoes, shirts, pants, hats, movies and magazines that defined a lifestyle. A lifestyle commoditized and exploited mixing lairs with legends until it is nearly impossible to separate Da Bull from Bull %$%^. Its layers of mystique, the mystique that generates ten billion dollars a year, dollars that fund pro surfing's world tour which culminates on the North Shore of Ohau.
It's the Vans Triple Crown -the Final 3 contests of the year --held in the cyclone of the North Shore between Halloween and Christmas Eve. For 55 days the Triple Crown is a catalyst for a big wave soap opera that unfolds around, beside and away from the actual contests.
Highwater DVD by Dana Brown
|
