Lane Davey Is All About Surf
photos by Sean Davey
by Lane Davey
posted 2004-11-15
Once Tasha Zahara left back to NYC, Jenny Crusant was the only girl I met, who surfed at that time. Being a girl who surfed back then was about the equivalent of walking out onto a football field to play ball with the boys. My first day at Banyans where I learned to surf, I remember asking da boyz where to paddle out and they told me the "wrong place" so they all watched as me and my board became dry docked on top of the live reef covered in Vana (sea urchins); one of them then pointed and laughed as he yelled "look it's Moses walking on water."
Photo by Sean Davey
When I moved to Oahu to attend University of Hawaii, Manoa, it was more of the same. I remember this one guy at Kaisers, in town, saying some sexual remark to me and after I stood up to him he proceeded to flick his board at me every day for like a month until he finally realized I wasn't going to go in, nor was I going to go out with him. I encountered these chauvinist attacks all the time from the guys, except when I would venture out on bigger days. And when they saw me, they looked as if they had seen a ghost, they would change their tone from mockery to that of a genuine concern for my well being. Now it is those same guys who probably have the most respect for me because I made it through their scrutiny and gained the ability to be sitting right next to them on some of the most classic days of our era.
The Classic Days. I guess I would have to start by saying when I first started paddling out like 8 or 10 feet I was so scared, that I just kept asking myself why I was doing this. Then one day I realized that I must have liked the fear or I wouldn't have been able to keep going back out. I mean you wouldn't enjoy a roller coaster rider if it weren't scary. You never get over the fear, you just embrace it and start figuring out what to do to save yourself from getting in trouble and then it actually does become more like a controlled environment. Like a roller coaster (that's why I made the point about how much I studied the ocean with the buoy reports.)
Photo by Sean Davey
I mean if you know how to get out there and not get beat up all the time its just beautiful and magnificent. I kind of learned at Haleiwa which after trying to position yourself in that crazy current made other spots seem okay even if they were gnarlier because they weren't just sucking me around the whole time. Avalanche across from there is just an incredible wave.
One time this guy saw me out there and later said that place is like the Super Bowl of Surfing. I mean one day I encountered what I think was a pretty big shark paddling out and I pretty much sit in that channel so since I couldn't choose between the shark and the pit, I went in. One of the first times I surfed it was with this lady named Sasha. She surfs down there all the time. She goes all the way outside of Avalanche to outside Paradise. That's so far out there that she says you can see a bird on the red buoy. The waves at Avalanche are so cool, its like a spinning sensation I have never felt anywhere else. You take off and the wave is right in front of you instead of parallel to you and then you just stand there and it spins you all the way to the end of the wave.
Photo by Sean Davey
Ala Moana Bowl after 5ft is like Pipelines summer counterpart. When that wave gets going is as good as anything on the North Shore. It's organized, its usually glassy and its just so controlled. I have so many great memories there, but if I were talking to the guys I would talk about specific times that classify those days, some remembered by good and others bad. It would be like do you remember: the day the pole fell down, do you remember the Ray Day or the Channon Day (each one had head injuries that put them in a coma but they both made full recoveries).
Do you remember a couple of years back when that boat went over the falls and everyone had to push it out of the lineup in between the close out sets. Any hardcore Ala Moana guys would remember all those times and if they weren't there for some reason they heard about it. I was the girl out there with them. Girls now days don't seem to be that hardcore. There are so many girls, but not like the guys, they just aren't that into it. I guess what I am trying to say is that its not a lifestyle to them, they don't live for it like we have. Its like a job, or something they do on the side or to be famous. I am hoping that will change.
