Slab of Irish Rock 

Like two men on a park bench watching the world go by, Barry Mottershead and I sit on the ski watching Mullaghmore. The sun’s out. It’s windy. Understated, it’s the best day of the year at the best big wave in the world. In so many ways, it’s scary. In so many ways, it draws you in. Like many others, I fell in love at first sight. 

Watching this wave will polarize your daytime fantasies and your recurring nightmares. I have this one where I have one limb chained to the reef while the ocean’s flat, the way it is only before a big swell’s about to hit. The tide is coming up. I wake up as the water draws out before the first set. Another nightmare: I’m charging across an ancient battlefield, and Taz Knight is charging toward me. I wake up before we clash swords. 

But right now, Taz is next to our ski, bending his arms like a T. rex and flapping his hands, using surf sign language to ask if we’d like to borrow his board for a dig. We shake our heads. He paddles closer. 

“You sure?” he says. “I’ve got some already, and I’m happy to sit on the ski for a bit. It’s pumping.” 

We watch Gearoid McDaid, on a smaller board, toy with stretchy ones that grow as they go. He’s talent times work. I can’t relate to that kind of pro-athlete regimen. 

Barry finds my swim fins Velcroed to the ski and laughs. He wants to put them on and bodysurf the bowl. Off he goes, joining the swimming crew of camerapeople. I admire the hell out of camerapeople. They stand firm against the cold. I don’t have that kind of tolerance. Barry almost snags one, eliciting much laughter and cheering. “Happy out,” they say here, an expression of joy.

I close my eyes and drift until the horizon stands, snapping everyone to attention. Surfers, camerapeople, and skis all move herd-like as the ocean draws out flat the way it does when a big set comes—the way it does in my recurring nightmare. The first wave blocks my view of the second wave. At the crest, we see Conor Maguire on the best wave of the best day. 

Conor draws a learned line. Deliberate. Low. The tube belly dances beautifully, then grotesquely, then beautifully again. Lip shapes throw fits around him, but he stays matador until a chunk of water swats him like you’d brush a bug. I get him on the ski and bring him back to the channel. I know he’s okay. I can tell. I’m a fan. Barry is too. We were Conor’s first fans. 

“I just wish I’d have made it,” Conor says. 

“You did,” I say. “Thanks,” he replies. “I air-dropped into it and thought, Hey, I’m going over the falls anyway. I might as well stand up.” Conor never does the excitement-babble thing. 

“There was a wave in front, and nobody saw the drop,” I say. 

“Thanks for getting me,” Conor says, looking me in the eyes and smiling. He’s deliberately polite. 

Barry swims back to my ski. 

“That was amazing,” he says. 

“He wishes he’d made it,” I say. 

“He did!” 

Barry pulls himself on the sled and sits backward. 

“That was…” he starts, but drifts off, looking at the mountains and simultaneously back through time. I drift too. We both replay Conor’s wave in our heads.

“Amazing,” Barry says. “It’s mental. That connection of seeing that set. That spark that happens when you see the one. It’s like seeing an old friend come round the corner.” 

He’s still wearing my fins, flapping them like a mermaid. He keeps talking like he can’t help it. 

“Conor has fast-tracked evolution,” he says. “We’ve had glimpses of it, but that wave was from our dreams.” 

Or nightmares, I think. 

The sun hides behind a cloud. I watch the waves while Barry ponders the meaning of it all out loud. A seagull flies over and shits. 

“Imagine a slab of rock with water washing over it loving Conor more than anybody can,” Barry says. “Loving him like he’s family.” 

My admiration for Conor and what we’ve just witnessed allows me to understand what Barry’s trying to say. “That wave,” he continues, “was the universe playing music.” 

A great wave is a culmination, a coming together. The result of effort, luck, preparation, and drive. Conor’s talent is different. Conor’s talent is the apple—the apple on the tree. The tree is the universe, growing and unknowable. 

Barry turns around, laughs, and says, “You’ve got bird shit on your knee.”

[Feature Image Caption: Conor Maguire. Photo by Gary McCall]