Shane Dorian bare knuckle boxes a Puerto Escondido Beast

Puerto Escondido flicked the switch over the weekend and, unsurprisingly, it was Shane Dorian who bare knuckle boxed the wave of the swell. Shane’s the kind of gent that Stab digs since he personifies so much of what is awesome in surfing; Big waves, eternal youth, a family man, bowhunting skills, Hawaiian blood, Momentum-era legitimacy and really just a resume with everything a surfer would ever want. To which he now adds this wave at Puerto and the various awards it’ll go on to receive. Seen it yet? It’s wild. Below, Shane tells us all about how he came to be in the mix of this swell, and what it was like swinging into such an unfriendly situation…

Interview by Craig Jarvis

(Better quality video of the wave here)

Stab: We don’t hear from you for a while and then out of the blue you’re in Puerto taking off on one of the waves of the season/year/decade/etc. What led to you free falling into that thing?
Shane: I was on a boat trip in Indo and I had a look at the charts and it looked like an insane swell for Puerto so I flew all the way home to pick up my boards and got back on the plane and flew to Mexico to chase the swell.

That’s some airtime for a Mexico trip. Yeah and it was just a short little three-day trip, to get a few nuggets.

The charts must’ve really been jacked. Well, the forecast looked nearly as big as it gets. Very long period and a good angle for Puerto.

When you arrived, how big did it look from the beach? It was grinding. It was fucking huge. We had to paddle out in the boat harbour about a half mile away because it was impossible to paddle through the surf. There was literally no way out.

So you’re sitting at a Mexican beachbreak and this wave storms in. Looks death for most, but for you, it looks… inviting? Oh yes, it looked like a bomb and I knew I was in the spot. Puerto is super shifty and hard to get opportunities, so I knew that wave could be my only chance all day, and it was. I took it.

Tell us all about that funky board you’re riding? My board. It’s a good one. Its a 9’0 shaped by John Carper (JC). It’s a beefy quad.

Stab: Tell us about the drop. At first I thought it was gonna be a roll in, but then I made a weird adjustment by accident, and it held me up in the offshore wind. I got really extended, and my fins popped out on the way down. I was so sure I was gonna eat shit. I ended up landing on my board, and recovered in time to pull up.

After that drop, the tube must’ve been the easy part? I was just stoked I made the drop. The barrel was wide open, and it slabbed, and hit the sand just right. There was a little chandelier at the end that tried to clamp me, but my cowboy survival stance did the trick. It wasn’t pretty but it did the job.

That cowboy survival stance was what did it for all of us. You know that wave is going to win awards, right? You know, I’ve been to Puerto quite a few times and never got a memorable wave, so nabbing one I will remember is all the award I need. Yew!