Twelve-foot bulldozer, The Pipeline

Today, we give you an Emotional Rescue from Stab issue #57… Tell me how you feel about now? Is the panic button flashing? This is the Pipeline, in the middle of the winter season, six-to-eight, with 12- foot bulldozers like this periodically creating terrible anxiety among the crowd. The experienced surfers, you’ll see here to your left, know that there’s an escape route through the Backdoor as the northerly nature of the swell will tend to clean up the Pipe channel. Look closely. See the different strategies. Bruce Irons, red shorts, at the apex, will spin around, and pull into a closeout Backdoor tube. See the pack heading northward toward Sunset. Most of all, look at the track of the bodyboarder at the bottom of the frame. Kid is a paddle steamer! Ryan Miller, the New Jersey photographer who climbed into a tiny two-seater bird for this shot, describes a different type of anxiety. “The bird was the size of a mini car. I was touching kneecaps with the driver and the other kneecap was hanging outside the door. The seatbelt was like something out of a 1970s automobile. The second we left the ground I was scared to death.” Not that terrified that the thought of a lil liquor didn’t enter his head. “On the way back I was starting to feel relaxed so I asked the guy if we could stop off at the Turtle Bay for a Mai Tai.” The sting? Two c-notes on top of the $800 already melted into Mr Miller’s Amex. – Derek Rielly