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SURFERMAG.COM ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

SURFERMAG.COM: Why is the act of surfing still such a crucial part of Bernie Baker’s life?

BERNIE BAKER: Hoah, boy...It’s...probably…why…Somebody asked me the other day because we were talking about other sports and other things we all enjoy doing whether as you get older or whether it’s something that you’ve been doing since you’ve been very, very young; I’ve always watched Formula One racing—I can’t tell you why I always watch Formula One, and I live for the beginning of the season on TV every year. And I’ve played tennis since the mid-‘70s and I enjoy getting out on the court at night—not in the day, but at night—any night of the week, even if it’s raining. And as far as surfing goes, anything that has to do with surfing—I just want to be there, I want to enjoy watching as a spectator. If I’m asked to be an official or help out or do something, I enjoy doing that, because if it makes it look better or it creates a better package.

SURFERMAG.COM: How does the act, how does the physical act of going surfing, how does that affect you? What does it do to you?

BERNIE BAKER: If I don’t get in the water, and I’ve been surfing since the mid-‘60s ‘cause I came down from Seattle to Southern California as I was growing up; if I don’t get in the water within X amount of days from the last time, I absolutely fall apart. And I’ve tried to do everything from researching it to doing that whole “soul searching” thing where you say to yourself, “Can’t you just get over it? Can’t you just move on?” Can’t you just say to yourself, “Hey, you’ve done it, you’ve had your great three decades of this craziness. What’s up?” Why can’t you say to yourself, “You know what, I think I am going to probably consider moving to Idaho at some point and buying four acres and raising elk”—you know, just something completely opposite. And yet, I can’t leave the ocean; there’s no way that I cannot be within a breath of the sea.

SURFERMAG.COM: Why is that? What is it about the ocean, if you can drill it down to a granular level, and look within that, why is that?

BERNIE BAKER: I have a friend of mine at the University of Hawaii, we talked about this one time as to why there’s a group of us who can’t break away from our connection with the ocean on a physical level, and he had a great thought about it—he said that, “You know, probably if you could take our DNA genetically and trace it right back to its root element, you would probably find that we definitely came out of the sea. Some tiny, microscopic portion of us is closer to being fish than being orangutan.” It’s just that there’s something in us that keeps drawing us back to the ocean on a physical level—not just to watch it, but to play in it, to be part of it, luckily we grew up when surfing was created as an existence, and it’s been us, maybe I would have, without surfing, maybe I would have been a fisherman all my life, but because surfing has existed, I‘ve existed as a surfer, and I can’t put it in other words. It’s part of the DNA, it’s part of the microscopic makeup of how a group of us are. It’s like Roger Lucas said, he goes you know, our DNA is probably that in which if some science research whacko could probably strip it right down to that final strand of, I forgot the word, but the genome or whatever it is, probably would find out that, “Oh my god. Your greatest, greatest grandfather/grandmother billions of billions of years back, had gills.”

SURFERMAG.COM: [Laughing] Very good. Do you think that surfing is more beneficial on a mental health level or on a physical health level?

BERNIE BAKER: You know, when you separate the physical from the mental on the health issue of surfing just as something that keeps you alive, keeps you sane, keeps you whole, I think as you get older, it obviously becomes as much mental as it is physical. I really don’t care [about] the quality of the wave that I ride at times when I know that I just have to go surf, and that can be the next day after surfing for six hours or it can be a week later after, let’s say, running one of the events at Triple Crown and not being able to get in the water at all other than jumping in the last five minutes of daylight, go in for a quick bodysurf, come out, go home, and have dinner, I’d have to say that just the rinse-off…MR had a good way of describing it, he said: “I’m just going for a splash”; didn’t say he was going for a surf, didn’t say he was going to be going out there because it was the best day of the year, he just said, “I’m just going out for a splash.” And there were times when he stayed down at Jock Sutherland’s mom’s house and he would paddle out at Chun’s, it would be onshore, I remember it would be like Kona winds, it would be just miserable, and we’d all go out, and maybe we would get 20 minutes of waves. And he was just as satisfied with those 20 minutes in the ugliest, most horrific of conditions you can imagine—nobody even in the parking lot, no one at all. But his little terminology, that little expression “I’m going for a splash” probably made him just as whole as an insane day at Off the Wall or wherever it is that was just going to be a great day of surfing for him, and that’s the way it is for a whole group of us. It’s like, the mental side of needing to get in the water can be way more dear, way more necessary than going out and going, “God, It’s insane Sunset,” or “It’s insane Backdoor,” or “Off the Wall is off its face,” I’m down there for the day, it’s got nothing to do with that. When you gotta get in the water, you’ve got to get in the water, physically or mentally.

SURFERMAG.COM: I want to know how you deal with crowds—how you deal with surfing and crowds.

BERNIE BAKER: You know, growing up in Hawaii over the last 30 years, I’ve had three decades of watching this island grow, and crowd-wise, again, keeping in mind that you can’t get rid of the crowds on an island because they’re built in—they’re not escaping, there’s no bridge, there’s no ferry service that’s going to dump them over somewhere else; I mean, they are here. And if I think back to some of the really, really fun days, let’s say late afternoons, late season north swell Laniakea where there was like six of us out—Butch Perreira, myself, Dennis Pang, and maybe four other guys from Town side that are all close to each other when it comes to surfing late in the evening, and then I look at it now and going, “God, that six guys has just turned into 45 guys,” and you paddle out and you say, “Oh, this is unreal—there’s only 40 guys in the water; I’m going to score a whole bunch of waves.” You’ve got to accept it. You’ve got to flow with it. You’ve got to say to yourself, “Hey, you know what? I want to surf that wave, I want to get three waves before it gets dark.” If it’s an afternoon surf, and I’m not looking at the crowds, I’m not thinking, “Oh my god, there’s so many people in the water, this is nuts. Where am I gonna go? I’m so bummed out. I’m going home.” And I’ve got friends that do that. I’ve got friends that will pull up and just go, “I’m not going out. There’s just too many people in the water.” And if they’re a little bit older, they’re going to look at it and they’re going to reflect on it and they’re going to go, “I remember when, therefore I’m not going to do this.” And I’ve never been one of those, I’ll just paddle out in the middle of the 60 guys and go, “Hey, you know what, it’s either my luck to get two or three waves, or maybe even a dozen waves, or I’m going to sit it out,” but I’m going to go out there and I’m going to find ‘em. And it could be Ala Moana all summer long, like this past summer, or it could be on our side during the winter, but you just do it.

SURFERMAG.COM: And really you do that because you want, as MR said, to just go for a splash, to get a mental release.

BERNIE BAKER: Exactly. It’s sometimes, I think Gerry put it really well, ‘cause he was talking about, and I don’t remember if it was in a magazine or a video or whatever or a film, but the comment was that surfing is actually, as far as the exercise goes, and the mental release, can really be in the paddle. Doesn’t have to be in the riding of the wave, doesn’t have to be in what you caught or what you rode or the moment you stand up; it’s not necessarily that. It’s really in the paddling is where the exercise is, and when your body needs exercise, whether you know it or not, your brain needs the exercise as much as your physical being needs the exercise. And when you get out to the lineup and there’s 40-50-60 people, or even 10 people, doesn’t matter, we could be surfing [inaudible surf spot], and just have 10 guys out, which could be a crowd, you’ve just got to say to yourself that getting out there is going to dump a whole lot of baggage off my shoulders. When I get out there, I’ll deal with the next aspect, which is finding my wave for myself, and no one dropping in on me.

SURFERMAG.COM: Let’s say that somebody drops in on you, let’s say it’s a beginner, maybe it’s an expert, whatever. How do you deal with that person, or that conflict?

BERNIE BAKER: If it’s a critical wave and a critical situation, and I’d be honest in saying that I definitely separate where I surf from where, let’s say a Backdoor situation or Pipeline on a big day, even Off the Wall, just something where you can actually get legitimately hurt, that’s something that you’ve got to say to yourself, “How do I want to handle this? What do I want to say to the person or do I want to just shrug it off and paddle away on the other side and just stay away from them?” or do you want to just almost tell yourself, “There’s got to be a better moment here for me, I’m going to get back out there and I’m just going to find it and I’m just going to pretend like that moment never happened, and you’ve got to, it’s weighing on your shoulders at that moment, I mean it’s bogging you down as you take off and all of a sudden there’s somebody that was you 20 years ago, and they may not even know that you were behind them, they may even say to themselves, “Oh my god, I’ve done it. I’ve really blown it. I took off in front of somebody and what am I going to do and I’ve got to get out of their way but I can’t because I don’t know how because I’ve only been surfing for two years.” You just got to learn to work around it.

SURFERMAG.COM: Alright...hey thanks for the time Bernie.

BERNIE BAKER: My pleasure Scott…now let’s go surfing!

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