Stab Magazine | Downstream, with Nikki Van Dijk (The Gallery)

Live Now: Chapter 11 Mini-Documentary With Dane Reynolds

5291 Views

Downstream, with Nikki Van Dijk (The Gallery)

Photos: Kane Skennar Words: Lucas Townsend In this place, everything is slow. The traffic past Sunset Beach Elementary school. The wait for a marginal ride in any lineup. A green light for competition. A response from anyone to do anything remotely productive. Even the ranger who tried to debunk my lied answer when she asked […]

girls // Mar 8, 2016
Words by stab
Reading Time: 4 minutes

Photos: Kane Skennar
Words: Lucas Townsend

In this place, everything is slow. The traffic past Sunset Beach Elementary school. The wait for a marginal ride in any lineup. A green light for competition. A response from anyone to do anything remotely productive. Even the ranger who tried to debunk my lied answer when she asked if we were shooting commercially or not in her gorgeous waterfall park lacked quick wit. Hawaiian time, they call it. Slow.

The water now trickling past Nikki Van Dijk’s body runs slow, too. It’s much less frustrating than every other handbreak on this island. It’s therapeutic as it hums towards Waimea Bay. Nikki’s lying in a rock pool, 200m downstream from where the falls first spill from the cliff tops and onto the heads of Chinese tourists, marine-ready in lifejackets. There’s little light, blocked by a weather front, which teases to leave. What’s left cuts through a dense canopy and branches twist overhead, Avatar-esque, as we make for our own shoot. The theme: Blue Lagoon, the 1980’s romantic film by Randal Kleiser. Young Brooke Shields, sans the gent.

802_11

Nikki lies between boulders smoothed by centuries of sculpting. Her movements are light and the gentle water movement tugs her hair slightly, like smoke from incense. Her dress, loose and of fine fabric, wets fast and hugs her stomach and never did I have more motivation to stop drinking beer. Or eating anything. Ever.

“Your body is like a little car engine,” she says, running her fingers through her hair. “You put bad gasoline in it, it’s going to run bad. Put good gasoline in it and it’ll run forever.”

Premium. Got it.

Nikki, as opposed to this island, is fast. Remote beginnings will do that to a girl with ambition. Phillip Island, Victoria is home, a fisherman and a teacher, parents. It takes roughly an hour to check the whole island and variety breaks often here. Her brother, Joe, is an underground junior sure to put it together now that the burden of school is behind him. And sister, Nina, like so many other touring siblings, rides the CT as manager. There’s hints that this is a particularly tight unit. And Nikki is onstage wearing the Dutch name proud.

802_12

“The waves at home are really good,” she says. “From my house it’s 40 minutes to one end of the island and about 15 to the other. Smiths Beach is home, but there’s points and slabs all over the island. I’m so used to hanging out with guys all the time, because I was always the only girl out surfing.”

“Dad got me into the ocean. He loves it. He’s travelled over Europe, lived in France, and we grew up on stories about how amazing Hossegor was. It’s funny now, that I actually go there and for him to share that with me means a lot.”

She speaks with comfort, as if she’s known me for years, a friend I first met that one time, back at that place. She jokes and teases and giggles and it pains me to describe it as a giggle, because it seems forgettable that way. But it’s sweet, not quite a hard laugh but a voice for a warm grin. There’s a real Gilmore-quality to her. Happy to just be here, and to be surfing and tasting the world’s flavours and not much else. And with this comfort comes stories I didn’t expect to be told.

802_16

“Dad was hit by a train when he was 21,” she recalls. “He was saving his dog who was on the track and a train came, clipped him and he got thrown off. He was in hospital for months and months and his shoulder was destroyed. Being in the ocean is the best thing for him now.”

Time at home is rare when you’re on a tour with a new cash injection and a business plan. While Nikki’s rise was fast, too (world junior champ in 2012), it hasn’t been to the heights she’d hope since meeting the Gilmore-Wright-Moore-Fitz clique, so totally bitchy they won’t let anyone else into the top four. But, Nikki’s 20. The results will come.

We stroll through the park for hours. Spotting new angles and ponds of ideas. It’s nice. Pleasant.

“This is what I’ve been waiting for!” says our photographer, Kane Skennar, as he unpacks his camera and begins fixing lenses and changing SD cards rapidly.

802_15

I look at him puzzled. Nikki clambers over larger boulders this time, the size of oil drums, into a fast-running section of water. She lowers herself into the rapid. The water, icy cold, shoots goosebumps down her skin. It’s gushing over her shoulders, down her front and along her legs. She’s shivering. Gradually turning a deep purple. But, that ambitious quality sticks, and she grits through. Suddenly, Nikki is illuminated in light. Kane begins hurriedly shooting her, dropping his trigger for just a second to point through the trees to the mountain above.

“Bonus light!”

The entire mountain face was golden. The front had passed and the last moments of sun before it crept behind more tangible obstacles is on. Between the speed with which Kane moved, Nikki posed and the sun set… it was the fastest thing I saw on the rock.

802_14

Comments

Comments are a Stab Premium feature. Gotta join to talk shop.

Already a member? Sign In

Want to join? Sign Up

Advertisement

Most Recent

Pittar’d And Feathered

Do the WSL judges deserve the internet's wrath? We asked the man of the hour.

Mar 28, 2024

Robbo, Pickles, And Tyler Wright Become The Underdogs Breakfast At Uninspiring Winkipop

The foreboding blade sharpens and inconsistent judging prevails on Day Two in Torquay.

Mar 27, 2024

“I Don’t Always Win Heats, But When I Do, I Try To Beat John John”

Slater shines and the axe begins its descent on Day 01 at Bells.

Mar 26, 2024

Back Against The Wall: The Ramzi Boukhiam Redemption

Morocco's first CT surfer on speaking six languages, having no coach, and snatching Fil Toledo's…

Mar 25, 2024

Will Kirra, Babies or JJF Stop a GOAT Winning at Bells?

Bluesky BOAG advice from a Superman specialist and former Trials winner.

Mar 25, 2024

Bells Preview: The WSL’s Victorian Sword Dancing Equinox Ritual

Will a Brazilian crack the Top 10 at Bells?

Mar 25, 2024

69 Shin Bones Later + the Anticlimactic State of Big Wave Record-Breaking

Lucas Chumbo might have surfed the biggest wave ever this year. But how will we…

Mar 23, 2024

Watch: ‘Fresh and Fried’ Ft the Quik Kids

How taxing is it to tackle the Gold Coast’s Triple Crown in a single day,…

Mar 23, 2024

The Popular Vote: The People’s Stab In The Dark With Kolohe Andino Champion

Which board looked best — to you —under Kolohe's talons?

Mar 22, 2024

João Chianca Opens Up About His Brain Injury, Rehabilitation, And Targeted Return To Competition  

"I don't just want to be the same surfer that I was. I don't even…

Mar 21, 2024

Six Key Learnings From Portugal

Three CT events in, what do we know? 

Mar 21, 2024

‘Zipper’ Is Going On Tour, Here’s Where You Can Watch It  

Dates, times + locations for the Venice, Encinitas, Sydney + Byron premieres.  

Mar 20, 2024

Dane Reynolds On His Future, His Past, And Chapter 11’s Raison D’être

Our 9-minute plunge into the collective psyche of Ventura's pillar(s).

Mar 20, 2024

From ‘Blue Ribbon Cross Country Runner’ to Vogue – How Steph Again Is Back With A Rip Curl Remix

Everything we know about the she-GOATs sponsorship boomerang.

Mar 18, 2024

Stab Interview: Darren Handley Explains Why You Can’t Buy The Winning Stab In The Dark Model

And his decades-long standoff with Slater.

Mar 17, 2024

Griff Embraces Portugal’s Eternal Time Loop To Vanquish Medina + Ewing, Defay Delays The Inevitable

A redeeming closing act at Supertubos.

Mar 16, 2024

The Secret Behind Lungi Slabb’s Inconceivable Greenmount Funnel

Six broken boards, one leaking forehead, and five days of Superbank mysticism.

Mar 16, 2024

Cheat Codes: A Million Miles Worth Of Travel Advice From Coco Ho

Hard-earned wisdom from more than 2,000 hours in the troposphere.

Mar 15, 2024
Advertisement