PARKO+FRIENDS
Watching Joel Parkinson surf is to know that all is still good with the world. But while the Coolangatta surfer’s syrupy, sublime talent has taken him to some of the world’s dreamiest waves, it’s his laidback groove that’s seen his friends in each of these locations, over the years, become family. The Hawaiians have a word for it, hanai. where an outside child is taken into the family and looked after as one of their own. In Hawaii and Tahiti, Jeffreys Bay and Angourie, Parko’s links to his adoptive families and the places themselves run deep – stitched together by all-time waves, clownish misadventures, stories around the campfire a thousand miles from home. Told with the help of surfing’s most colourful raconteurs and its finest photographers, Joel’s story is as much about the places and people in Joel’s life as much as it is about Joel himself. As Joel says, “It’s a book about me that’s not all about me.”
EXCERPTS…
On the morning of Occ’s birthday I got up early and went fishing in the bay and caught three tailor as a birthday present for him. I just gutted them and threw them on ice cause we had to leave to go surfing. We went surfing all day and came home and the tailor were still there on the ice and needed to be cleaned and filleted. I was busy cooking up everything else for the birthday feed, so I go to Occ, “Mate, can you walk down the beach and clean these for us?” Ten minutes later Craikey comes over the hill and he’s laughing so hard we couldn’t understand what he was going on about. He’s going, “Occy just had a fight with a seagull!” Occ had filleted the fish on the sand and put them in the bucket, but had turned his back on them and next thing there’s a seagull in his bucket flying off with his fish. He’s started chasing it and it’s flown off and he’s still after it, chasing it down the beach. It’s dropped the fillet into the water and he’s looking round for it but can’t find it. Craikey reckoned it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen in his life. Occ comes back and goes, “Geez, Joel, I’m sorry mate.” Instead of six fillets he’d come back with three. It could only happen to Occ… and that’s why we love him. – Joel
I couldn’t believe it. The tailor were so precious cause both Joel and I love eating ‘em, and Joel had got up early that morning to catch them just for my birthday. Anyway, Joel was busy getting the barbie ready, so he goes, “Occ all you have to do is clean the fish.” I’m like, “Sweet, I can do that.” I walk down the beach with them and I’m cleaning the fish while I’m having a beer and talking to Craikey. All of a sudden I turn around and there’s a seagull in my bucket and the thing flies away with my fish! I’m chasing him down the beach he’s flying off with it. It must’ve looked pretty funny. And I didn’t get it back. I check my bucket and somehow three fish have become one. I’m thinking, Joel’s not gonna be too happy about this. I get back up to the camp and Joel’s looking at me, and the one fish I’ve got and he goes, “What happened?” I go, “You don’t want to know.” – Occy
Joel and I have both grown up a lot. He’s always been a bit more mature than me, I think, and in a lot of ways he’s really helped me mature as I’ve got older. Him with his family has really been cool, cause I’ve got to watch his girls grow up. I don’t have kids yet, so I feel whenever I’m with the Parkinsons that I feel like part of their family. I love playing with Evie and Macy. He’s been there for me in the good times and the hard times, and there are only a handful of friends who I can say that about. For that guy to be Australian, a guy from halfway round the world, that means a lot. It really does. I remember the day in Brazil when he told me Monica was pregnant with Evie. He was 23, and we’re sitting there and he just goes, “I’m gonna be a dad.” I’m like, “What!?” And if you think his smile is big now, it was ear-to-ear back then. You look at him now and he’s just the perfect father. His family has grown and he’s got this beautiful house on the river, Occ’s down the street, and Snapper’s his oyster. Big things ahead. I definitely like his style. But don’t worry, Joel’s not smiling all the time. I know the red buttons; there’s not many, but they’re there. You know though, I never really met someone who is so happy-go-lucky. It’s hard to break him out of his groove. My brother’s tried and done pretty well a few times but he’s the master, he’s been born with a gift to find peoples buttons. That’s why it’s so good to travel with Joel, cause I whine a lot on the road. He just goes, “Will ya stop whinging!” I hate hearing it, but it makes me stop and question what I’m bitching about. It usually snaps me out of it and things are good again. The glass is always half full with Joel. I’m there trying to pour it out and he’s there trying to fill it up. – Andy Irons
We fly into Tahiti late at night and have stayed at the Beachcomber, which looks straight out over the reefs. I open the curtains and look out and there it is; eight foot of swell wrapping up the reef. I don’t say anything to Mon. I’m just thinking, holy shit, what’s Moorea going to be doing? We drive onto the ferry and we get across to the little bay on Moorea where the ferry docks, and on the corner of the reef pass is this sickest right, four foot and grinding. It’s onshore and wild though, so I’m going, okay this mightn’t be so bad. We drive around to the north side of the island where our hotel is and check in. We’re staying in one of those bungalows that sits out over the lagoon, but we’re on the sheltered side of the island so there’s no swell so I’m going, okay, if I can’t see the waves they don’t exist. Tree falling in the woods. So that night we’re cocktails, nice dinner, honeymoon love. The next morning I get up at six. It’s eating away at me, so I go to Mon, “Babe I might just go and have a look at the surf. I’ll be back for brekky.” Mon was a little hungover so I had some time. I get in the car and just fang for The Right on the other side of the island, which I thought might have been three or four foot at best. I pull up and… holy sh*t! It’s six-to-eight foot and out of its mind. There are three guys out. Most waves I was just cruising on my six-two, do a couple of carves, then pull into the end section which would just drain out. A couple of times I pulled out thinking if I get cheese-grated on my honeymoon this marriage is over. I can’t go back to hotel sliced to ribbons sticking to bed sheets going, “Sorry, Mon, I can’t do anything.”
I surf it from seven to 10am, and race back just as Monica is starting to wake up. She’s had her little sleep-in and is happy. We go and have a nice lunch and we’re sitting by the pool in the afternoon and all I’m thinking of is four stand-up barrels per wave. I didn’t go that afternoon, but I sat there stewing on it. The next morning I get up at six again and sneak out the door. I surf till 10 again. Come back, same thing, have some lunch. If I want to surf again though I’ve got to get Mon into it, so I go, “Monica, you’ve got to come and see these waves! You’ve never seen anything like it.” I was playing any card I could by that stage to get an afternoon surf. So we drive around to The Right and it was off its tits with hardly a soul out. But there’s not even a beach there, it’s just rocks, and it’s not the prettiest part of Tahiti. It just backs onto suburbia, and on Moorea – the most romantic island in the world – it’s probably the last place you’d ever take your girl. But Mon comes down and sees the wave and even she is blown away by it. It’s a novelty wave; it bends out to sea and breaks along the beach, not into it. She sat down and read a book while I surfed from one to about five.
So that night we went out and had a nice dinner. Next morning, up at six again. Third morning in a row I go and surf and this time it was bigger. It was eight foot with the odd 10-footer and only one other guy out. We surfed it amazing. Then at 9.30 it just goes whoosh, starts blowing as hard as it can onshore. I just go, thank you! You’ve never seen someone happier to see an onshore in his life. Monica was going to divorce me another day of this. I went back had the afternoon together by the pool with Mon then we left the next morning. A four-day honeymoon and three of the best days of surf I’ve ever had. Monica reminds me every day, and will do so every day for the next 60 years. – Joel
There was a real pivotal moment for me at Mundaka. It was a few months after Joel had won J-Bay, and I got a wildcard to surf in Mundaka and I made the quarters. We were both 18 and were travelling together through Europe and it was classic, a really fun time. We drove around in this little bus together doing the whole France and Spain thing, just surfing our way around the place. We drove down to Mundaka and I remember coming over the hill and seeing Mundaka breaking, listening to Creedence Clearwater, just frothing on the vibe of being in Europe and everything going so well for us. That night we were just hopeless, running amok, and everyone had to keep rescuing up from driving this van in the small streets in Mundaka. I remember Louie and Brian Hewitson helped us park the thing and drive it out of these skinny little car parks, because we were clueless little grommets. Anyway, we took the van up into the hills the night before the contest to try and find a nice spot to sleep for the night. I remember we ended up eating some berries from these little bushes, having a little fire and passing out in this van that we’d parked at some ridiculous angle on a hill. We woke up about three o’clock in the morning on top of each other cause we’d both rolled downhill into the back of the van. We woke up and are going, what the hell are we doing? We were wide-awake, so we said maybe the waves are good, why don’t we drive down into Mundaka and have a look? We had no idea what the time was, and we figured it was getting close to sunrise. On the small streets there were no cars around as we got near to the breakwall out of the bar came stumbling Dave Scard, Powelly and Elko and they’d obviously been in residence there for quite a while. They’re going, “C’mon, we’re going surfing! The sun’s coming up soon, let’s go!” So we got our boards and jumped into the harbour and paddled out. We thought it was probably about half an hour till light. It was more like two hours. But the moon was full and it was coming up over the valley, so we couldn’t see the waves coming but as soon as you took off everything was moonlit. I remember a couple of tubes with the moon shining straight into them and it was all green and trippy and you were looking down into valley. It was incredible. Anyway I got through to the quarters and then bombed, but then Louie actually took me and Joel aside and he sat us down on this rock at the little entrance to the harbour at Mundaka and had a little chat with us. He was saying to me, “You guys are doing good. If you wanna do the tour, you’ve just got to knuckle down for another year and you’ll be in with us all doing the tour. Is that what you want to do?” Joel is like, “F*cking oath!” And then Louie asked me and I go, “You know what? I don’t think I do, Louie. I don’t think I’m that interested in it.” And that was the pivotal moment. Six months later I bowed out altogether and have never surfed another heat since. It was the full fork in the road moment. But after we made our decisions we were having a ball. We went up to France and were just running amok. We were eating baked beans out of a pot that had been sitting on the stove for two days, eating tomato sauce sandwiches. Just clueless grommets having the most amazing time travelling around. – Rasta