Heavy Water

You've been following that swell

across the whole ocean, watching it on the computer.

How big is it gonna be?

15, 18, 20 to 25?

You're always nervous.

In the dark, you're ready.

Daylight hits it,

and then you realize what you're dealing with.

You put on your gear, and you paddle out to waves

that could take your life at any second.

Finally, you get out there with your friends,

all the preparation,

all the nerves, all the training...

and all of a sudden that set's come from across the world.

Somehow you get to turn around and start paddling

like you never paddled.

As soon as you paddle, you feel it pick you up,

and then taking off.

And at first you can't even see nothing.

It's just all wind and just all rush,

and then you finally get to your feet.

Right there, the wind clears,

and the water clears from your face,

and you get to see what you're dealing with.

Now it's just survival.

You just gotta make it no matter what the case is.

When you put it all on the line right there,

and you ride the wave,

it's the most exhilarating thing that you could possibly do.

You ride that wave,

and that's when you just get the ride of your life.

That's what makes you just wanna go back and do it again.

I've always wanted to challenge death.

I loved to get just as close to death as I could possibly get

and then dodge it.

That was my thrill in life.

This was back in 1943.

Dickie Cross was a senior in high school.

Woody and he went out at Sunset.

You know how, on the North Shore,

it'll climb from six foot in the morning

to 30 feet in the afternoon.

And once they got out there,

it was just closing out all over the place,

and it was probably in the 20-30ft range.

And they decided that they would paddle down to Waimea Bay

where they could come in.

Woody Brown got washed up on the beach, nearly unconscious.

Dickie Cross was never seen again.

Surfing was the first

of what now they're calling extreme sports.

Young men going out with nothing but a surf board,

no lifeguards, no rescue,

and risking their lives for the chilling ecstasy

of riding a wave that could kill you.

My name's Nathan Fletcher.

My grandfather, he would tell me that,

you know, if you're a real surfer,

you can make the inside bowl at Makaha when it's 20 feet.

Now you see the inside bowl at Makaha when it's 20 feet,

it's pretty much unmakeable, very few waves are makeable.

It's pretty much a close-out.

If I rode 100 waves out there,

I might've made three through the bowl.

If you do make a wall,

all the way from the point through the bowl,

it is the ultimate.

Nate's grandfather knew all the Hawaiians,

and then talked Buzzy Trent to coming over.

They were living together in a Quonset hut

over on the Makaha side.

They were sending back pictures to us on the mainland

that just were mind-boggling

compared to what we had been surfing.

Those years, they were riding really big waves at Makaha

and revolutionizing big wave surfing.

I was around and influenced

by the older guys who were around my grandfather's house.

And as I got older and got more into big wave surfing

and started understanding what was going on in the photos

and who the people were, I realized,

wow, these people were like astronauts to big wave surfing

and to surfboard design.

So it's pretty cool

to see what those guys did with the equipment they had,

and to hear all those stories, and to carry a family tradition.

I was born in San Clemente General Hospital,

grew up in San Clemente.

My earliest memory of surfing...

I think I was about three years old.

My dad pushed me on the little whitewater, I stood up,

and then ride it, hit the sand, and I would slide up the beach.

And that's my earliest remembrance

of riding waves, getting pushed in.

Nathan learned how to surf and talk and walk and skateboard

all at the same time.

The Fletchers are from California,

but Nathan and Christian were pretty much raised

on the beach at Pipeline.

It wasn't like this kid coming from San Clemente

who was just, like, going and surfing the North Shore, like.

He was literally just shy of, like, raised

on that Ehukai Beach right there.

My dad and Gerry Lopez had a house at Pipeline

when I was young,

I wanna say between the ages of eight and eighteen.

So we would surf it a lot.

My brother had his own Waimea gun shaped by Gerry Lopez.

It was pink and purple camouflage, eight feet long,

when he was 11. I don't know any other kids

that had an eight-foot custom big wave board at 11.

He went and surfed Waimea,

and I had to go out because I was 16,

I couldn't let my little brother paddle out and sit in the car...

like a jerk.

He got the biggest wave of the day, too!

I have photos of him at Waimea when he's 11,

riding a pretty good-sized wave, 18 to 20 foot, backside,

when everybody else was caught inside.

When it got too big, my dad was doing his jet-ski thing.

He'd come to the house at Pipeline on the North Shore.

He took the jet-ski out to go surfing,

and then he ended up having us tow-rope...

I used to tow Nathan and Christian

out at Banzai Beach in the '80s.

People just weren't ready for it.

When I was growing up on the North Shore,

the Fletchers lived just down the street.

So I grew up with Nathan and Christian,

and I've known them since the '70s.

They got skateboard backgrounds, you know.

When those guys were doing their tow-in thing,

they had Herbie pulling them in, doing airs,

and Herbie Fletcher letting people see the possibilities

of using some sort of motorized vehicle connected with surfing.

It was a whole new world, futuristic stuff.

It all kind of stemmed from

Herbie taking the jet-ski to Outer Reefs.

Herbie said, "The ocean was made for pistons, Darrick!

"You gotta match power with power."

My dad introduced motorsports into surfing.

He also was a pioneer for the '60s and '70s skate-surf style,

but Jay Adams is the person who took that to the next level,

and he was the first guy to really surf and skateboard.

I met Jay Adams

and I met Christian Hosoi when I was 11 or 12.

Jay Adams was older than Christian,

but real similar, you know?

'Christian Hosoi,

'one of the best skateboarders in the world!'

In 1978, Jay Adams would take me surfing

at, like, five in the morning.

He'd be in the water by himself,

and he'd just charge from in front of the rocks

and just go down the line and then just blast the biggest air

before airs were even something.

There's always those ones that are just special,

and Jay had that, he had that "it" factor.

There's just something about him

that's influenced everyone in so many different ways.

He was hanging with surfers trying to emulate, you know,

say, Buttons, and doing, like, rail-grab cutbacks,

and taking that to skateboarding in the pools.

He was just raw.

Jay Adams and that generation -

punk rock, skateboarding, everything -

comes from surfing in the '60s.

Then it filtered out into "Kultur".

That was the name of Christian Hosoi's company, "SKT Kultur".

Me and Jay would terrorize the surf/skate scene.

Nathan was really small at the time,

but his brother Christian was into skateboarding,

so we all had this kind of family feeling

when we'd go and hang out together.

Christian Hosoi's all style,

and then my brother, he was different, he had his style.

My brother Christian, when I was about six years old,

had already started bringing airs

from skateboarding to surfing.

He was doing stuff that nobody had ever seen.

It was an evolution of air-surfing

and style and skateboarding all mixed together,

just a real innovative time.

So everybody was just crazy, right?

Christian Fletcher, Christian Hosoi... just whacked.

And then Jay, he was on his deal, too.

At a certain point, everybody just went too far.

So they went to jail and did rehabilitation.

Me, I was a lot younger than those guys.

I kind of watched it, saw what was going on.

Nathan started hanging out with Jay Adams in Hawaii,

now living there.

When I was about 12, he'd come pick me up

to take me skateboarding up in the hills in Pupukea.

He was already a famous guy,

but when I was young, he would treat me like an adult.

Time grew on, and we became friends.

He was definitely one of my heroes for sure.

I think he was the biggest influence on Nathan

skateboarding and really telling him,