Surfing Detective 02 - Wipeout

head and seal black wetsuit—shooting a mammoth green tube during the filming of
In God’s Hands.
Another photo pictured the memorial service for the wave rider at Ali‘i Beach Park in Hale‘iwa attended by hundreds of fellow surfers and family and friends.
    Next came a raggedly torn and yellowed
Star-Bulletin
clipping about Mark Foo’s wipeout in 1994 at Mavericks in Half Moon Bay near San Francisco. More stories about Foo’s drowning lay beneath this clipping and some glossy magazine spreads commemorating his life.
    Where did I put that one about Corky?
I thumbed through the folder crammed with clippings. Who knows how I got started collecting such sensational and morbid stories as a hobby? I also collect accounts of surfers attacked by sharks, since it happened to me. But the shark-bite pieces have their own separate folder.
    “‘The Wave of His Life’ Was His Last.” There it was. The
Honolulu Advertiser,
December 25, Christmas day. And there was Corky’s straw hair, intense eyes, and cocky smile. Next to the fallen surfer’s youthful face was another photo of his battered board.
    The accompanying story told how Corky had wiped out at Waimea on Christmas Eve. The sun had set, but the huge waves kept cranking, enticing surfers to stay out in the crimson afterglow. The waves that got him were twenty feet—a two-story building. Though the irony of big wave tragedies is that typically the unfortunate surfer miraculously survives the biggest wave of the day, only to be pummeled to death by a smaller one.
    Corky had just successfully ridden a monster of nearly thirty feet. “He died with a smile on his face,” proclaimed a fellow surfer. “He was grinning from ear to ear. Corky wished me ‘Merry Christmas’ and then paddled out for another one.” The next wave would be his last. “It’s the way he’d want to go,” said the surfer. “Not die in a car wreck or slowly wither of old age. He died happy. I’m glad for him.”
    The
Advertiser
continued: “The 27-year-old California native could not catch the first wave of the next set and was pounded back by three 20-footers that followed.” A lifeguard was quoted: “We figure the big waves pushed him deep underwater and kept him there. His body may never be found. It happens this way sometimes, unfortunately for loved ones left behind.”
    Three twenty-footers thundering in. Like freight trains. Caught in that boiling soup, tumbling head over heels and struggling to hold his breath, he wouldn’t have known which way was up.
    What must happen in white water twenty feet high? You probably
whirl.
Like a feather in a gale, only not so gently. It must feel more like the spin cycle of an industrial strength washer. Or being massaged by a hammer—a
jackhammer.
Most likely, Corky turned endlessly in the dark, exploding wave, then was sucked out unconscious to sea in Waimea’s powerful riptide. What happened afterwards is anybody’s guess.
    According to another clipping, more than a month later no trace of his body had been found. Not even a shred of his wetsuit. The tiger sharks that roam these coastal waters—those silent, steel-jawed killers—sometimes leave nothing behind.
    The sole known remains of Corky McDahl was his surfboard. The candy cane-striped board had drifted to shore, evidently ripped by coral on its tumultuous ride. Though the battered board shown in the
Advertiser
photo had no chunks missing, no telltale saw-toothed crescents torn from its rails. I decided to pay a visit to the Honolulu Police Department later that day—they’d have sharper photos than this newsprint image.
    I glanced at my answering machine. The red light was flashing like a warning beacon, so I pressed Play.
    “Kai? I missed you last night . . .” said the shy, childlike voice. “Weren’t we going to see that film?”
    Leimomi. Just like her to sound not the least bit angry—just pondering if she had the wrong day or time. She had them right. I simply forgot. Again. I had promised to take her to a movie remake of
The Merry Widow
that critics touted as “spellbinding” and “hilariously funny.” Some woman whose husband is barely in the grave takes up with another man and causes quite an uproar. It didn’t interest me in the least. I would have preferred to see a new surfing documentary that was playing. Maybe that’s why I forgot about Leimomi’s film.
    “Are we seeing
The Merry Widow
tonight?” Leimomi asked plaintively. “Not last night, but