The Heartbreaking, Inspiring Story Of Derek Dunfee

Derek Dunfee used to live for opening day at Maverick’s.

It was his rent money. The thing that made him stand out from his local La Jolla surf pack. His identity.

Now, he winces when he’s walking down for a gentle surf at his beloved Windansea and some vague acquaintance asks, “You looking forward to Maverick’s this year?”

Derek hasn’t surfed a wave at Mav’s for three years. He can’t even take photos out there anymore. In fact, he hasn’t surfed a wave over shoulder high in over a year, and only puts his head underwater currently if “absolutely necessary”.

The crisis of identity aspect of no longer surfing big waves is a small fry compared to the other issues Derek’s been dealing with. Primarily, the life-altering, long-term implications of repeated concussions sustained during his big wave surfing career. To help him deal with both — the question of ‘what do you do when your raison d’être gets taken from you twice?’ (Surfing first, photography second, but more on that later), and the medical process of coming to terms with the reflective experience of a life spent chasing something that left your brain “worse than a pro football player’s” — Derek has written a book, Waking up in the Sea. It’s remarkable on numerous levels.

“It took me about two years to put my thoughts together, write and actually be comfortable talking with people, because for a long time it was difficult for me to articulate the reasons I don’t surf big waves anymore,” Derek tells me from New York, where he was visiting on a self-funded mini book tour. “I’ve been dealing with this shit for a long time. I’m in a really great place right now, but it’s been difficult to find what makes me happy and balanced, because I’ve been really unstable for a long time. I’ve had to find a way to get comfortable with that.”

Derek Dunfee was born and bred La Jolla, the legendary Windansea being where he learned to surf and still lives and surfs to this day. He came up in a core surf heartland when professional surfing was at its zenith, and after falling in love with Maverick’s after his first trip there in December 2004, he became a regular fixture at both Half Moon Bay, and subsequently, the other big wave locations his Volcom paycheck could get him to. Which, from LAX, is quite a few — Hawaii, Mex, South and Central America all being short, inexpensive flights away.

My first dealings with Derek came in 2016 when I commissioned Jake Howard to write a profile piece on him for Stab print. Jake was our American staff writer who needed an assignment, and we needed “a Yank” in the mag to even out the Australian-centric issue. I knew Derek as the trad tattoo sporting former XXL winner who — despite no longer enjoying life as a pro surfer — still turned up on the sets at the best big wave sessions of the day and thought there might be an interesting story there. I also knew that he took nice film photos (a bonus when you deal in words and photos) and figured he’d be a great tie into core American surfing, which Australians often forget exists due to the rather homogenised, Christian types you see on the world tour.

A couple of years later Derek came to my attention again, this time photographing big waves rather than free-falling down them. His work from the period remains some of the most intimate and beautiful big wave photos I’ve seen. We spoke about his focus shifting to shooting big waves rather than surfing — he mentioned injuries and his history of concussions but didn’t dwell on it — although Derek admitted to still catching the odd wave in the sessions he was shooting. 

More recently I’d followed Derek’s health issues via Instagram and knew he’d been going through a tough time as a result of concussions sustained whilst surfing big waves. So when, after a digital hiatus, he announced that he’d written a book, I thought it worth giving him a ring to talk about the process and maybe give him a bump along in selling a few copies. Supporting those who take the time to form opinions on the page being a worthwhile cause, in my book. Especially people like Derek, who worked in a restaurant for eight years to fund his print venture. Our resulting conversation was more thought-provoking and heartbreaking than I could have imagined.

“I’ve been feeling fucked up for years from my concussions, but it’s not like this consistent thing,” Derek explains. 

“I wrote about my first two-wave hold down in 2007. I remember I just got a tallboy of beer and some Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream afterwards because I got a couple of crazy waves (as well as the concussion) and I wanted to celebrate. But I was so fucked up that I couldn’t drink it and couldn’t eat my ice cream. I have a crazy sweet tooth, so it completely threw me off.”

Derek tells me that he had headaches and dizziness for a week after the first concussion but didn’t think anything of it. Then the cycle — a new swell, a couple of crazy waves and a wipeout — continued. For years. Through the 2012 wipeout in Cloudbreak that saw him floating in the channel for 20 minutes, completely nude apart from his tattered board shorts wrapped around his ankle. Onto Cortez Bank in the same year (where he technically drowned) and up until about a year ago. When Derek realised that his version of ‘normal’ that he’d been battling for years wasn’t actually normal at all, and set out to find out what was happening to him. How had he gone from one of the most respected big wave surfers in the world, to getting nervous surfing two-foot Windansea?

Derek went to see a brain specialist and the first thing he was told was that his brain was in worse shape than if he’d been a professional (American) footballer. Then, after numerous tests, they also deduced that he’s only got around 25% function in his right eye.

“To be specific, it’s my VOR (Vestibulo-ocular reflex),” Derek explains. “So it’s my eye’s ability to focus when my head is moving. It’s caused by a network of issues that are attributed to traumatic brain injuries. It wasn’t just one specific one, it was a lot of concussions over a period of time.”

Brain injuries are a hot topic in surfing and have been thoroughly investigated by Jed Smith on Stab. Everybody who experiences successive head traumas — which in surfing, especially big wave surfing, usually means whiplash — is affected differently, but Derek Dunfee is an extreme example. He’s got a vastly increased chance of developing neurodegenerative diseases like CTE, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s in the future, like all those who’ve suffered repeated concussions. But his everyday life — including some mundane tasks — has been a struggle for longer than Derek likes to admit.

“My brain doctor describes it like this: on an emotional resting scale of 0-100, most people that don’t have CTE or brain injuries or trauma rest at about 20/100,” Derek says when I ask him to explain how he feels on a daily basis. “Whereas, because I’ve had so many concussions, I rest at about 80/100. I’m always on this higher alert, so if there’s anything that happens — if there’s a car crash, if I see someone get punched on social media — then it makes me way more emotional than it should.”

Moreover, Derek’s plagued by dizziness when travelling on planes, trains or in cars due to his 25% VOR function, and even looking up can render him incapacitated. Recently, surfing — something that’s been a constant in Derek’s life regardless of whatever’s been going on — has also made him nauseous.

“I got seasick surfing a few weeks back, and it really fucked me up and made me super emotional, you know,” Derek says with a crack in his voice. “Surfing’s been my entire life, it’s the one thing that’s got me through everything, all the traumatic events in my life in and out of the water. It’s like, a real therapeutic thing.”

The sudden, medically-backed realisation that all was not well with his neurological health sent Derek looking for more answers as to why this issue has affected him so profoundly. After all, all big wave surfers suffer whiplash and concussions regularly. Delving into his childhood medical records revealed something shocking. Derek’s first severe concussion occurred far earlier than his first Maverick’s session. Twenty years earlier, in fact.

“June 25th, 1985. Derek was hospitalised for one day to treat a concussion,’” Derek reads from his records at the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. “Derek fell out of the crib. He continues to experience headaches according to his family, and this was the beginning of the second year of his life. According to the information, Derek presents a combination of severe sensory motor dyspraxia and a minimum of moderate dysarthria, resulting in the impairment of intelligible speech production.’”

An epiphany. Derek admits that, at first, finding out that he’d been essentially dealing with repeated brain injury for his entire life ’tripped” him out. But eventually the specific, medical nature of the diagnosis at such an early age helped him make sense of what he’s dealing with as an adult.

“It’s easier for me to read to you from my records than to say that, ‘Oh, I had a concussion and it messed me up,” Derek explains. ‘They actually labelled it a condition, so that’s gone a long way to helping me process a lot of the episodes I’ve had over the years. For instance, I had a series of concussions leading up to around the time I drowned at Cortez. And then I was dizzy and nauseous for about three of four months afterwards, it was working me.”

Derek’s a pretty blue-collar, traditional dude. He’s into fixing cars by hand and spent a large chunk of his post-surfing years slinging fish at the El Pescador Fish Market in La Jolla. I assumed that his core surf background and newfound perspective on the dangers of big wave surfing would have made him reconsider his past attitudes towards hunting big swells, and asked him whether surfing needs to reconsider glamorising charging. His answer surprised me. Mainly because it became clear that Derek doesn’t really consider himself someone who charged. 

“I don’t have any regrets with my big wave surfing because it was such a gradual build,” Derek tells me. “Every year I started getting more and more confident, and I really wasn’t taking off on bad waves most of the time. If anything, knowing what I know now would’ve made me even more calculated and not paddle out certain days.”

Since finding out quite how bad things were internally, Derek’s been on an incredible journey to preserve what he’s got left of his former life, and also to find new meaning and ways of expression, now that photography, almost most cruelly, has also been taken away. They say that everyone’s got a book in them (and that’s where most of them should remain) but for Derek — who suffers from memory loss, dizziness and difficulty concentrating, among numerous other things — getting his thoughts and feelings down on paper was especially draining. Thankfully, Derek self-documented his surfing career, both in photos and words, which greatly aided the writing of the self-evidently titled, Waking up in the Sea. The result is part memoir, part photo book, but ultimately it’s the work of someone coming to terms with losing their identity in real-time. Derek didn’t know that he’d never surf big waves again when he started writing Waking up in the Sea, but now he knows his time sliding down mountains is truly done.

“There’s a lot of stuff that I didn’t share with people for a long time,” Derek tells me. “Like I’m semi-scared of the ocean now in certain conditions. I won’t put my head under the water even when I surf or when I’m in a pool, and it took me a while to reflect on stuff like that because I was embarrassed to talk about it.”

Derek’s is a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. He’s noticed no real progress since starting his rigorous recovery regime, which includes strenuous eye exercises, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and lots of visits to the Neurologist. The risk of long-term complications is very real. And, he’ll never surf a wave over head high again, for fear of what could be one concussion too many. We all check out shadows of our former selves, but not many of us cut such striking figures as Derek Dunfee in our prime. However, resilience and reflection are powerful coping mechanisms, and Derek’s remarkably philosophical about both his past and future. 

“I don’t have any regrets because I love surfing so much and I’m proud of my big wave career,” Derek says. “Now I want to read more and challenge my brain as much as I can. Writing this book’s been epic for connecting with people, and there’s been a lot of people who’ve reached out to me who I would never have expected to. When you have concussions and a lot of that stuff, people tend to isolate themselves like crazy, but the experience has made me feel really good instead of just isolating myself at my house in Windansea and really not talking to anybody. It’s branched me out.”