Surfer ceremony celebrates lost mates

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

The surfboards that took two young Whakatane men to their deaths were ceremonially set alight on the beach of Omaio Bay on the East Cape yesterday.

It was a month after huge seas claimed best friends Brandon Jarrett and Greg Boynton-Shaw after they had ridden the best waves of their lives.

Greg's body was washed up on rocks 24 days later, 70km along the coast near Lottin Pt. He was buried in Whakatane on Saturday.

Family and friends still hope the sea will relinquish Brandon, the father of two young children.

With the Pacific rolling in in the background, a solemn crowd of more than 200 watched a moving surfer tradition unfold about midday.

The boards stood, pointing skyward, supported by driftwood. Ignited, they poured forth thick, black smoke, which blew out to sea. Then, one after the other, they folded and fell into a dusty heap.

It is a Hawaiian surfing ritual to destroy ill-fated boards to ensure no one else uses them.

After prayers were said and the fire had died down, about 20 of the dead men's surfing buddies paddled out into the ocean and formed a circle. They communed with their lost mates one more time and shouted their names to the elements.

One of those in the circle was Adrian "Porky" Barlow, who had survived the monstrous seas in the wake of tropical Cyclone Ivy and tried vainly to save his companions.

"I said a big thank you to them for bringing me into that last wave," he said yesterday.

It has been a long, harrowing month for Mr Barlow and the families of the two victims.

Sadly, the euphoria the three 31-year-olds shared on February 29 was short-lived.

All experienced "extreme" surfers, they had set out to find the best surf on the coast.

"The further east we came, the better the swell," Mr Barlow recalled.

As they came over the hill from Whitianga Bay and looked down on Omaio, 56km from Opotiki, it looked perfect, causing them to "hoot and shout. We were excitedly putting our wetties [wetsuits] on and watching the waves," Mr Barlow said.

The clean left-hand surf off the rocky ledge in Omaio Bay was the best the surfers had experienced in 20 years of boardriding. "We had an absolute blast. The [wave] faces were as tall as power poles."

After nearly an hour and a half, the trio decided to come in for coffee. By then, conditions had worsened and the sea had swept up alongside State Highway 35, washing out logs and debris from the beach.

"A big peak came through and they called me into that last wave," Mr Barlow said.

While that brought him to the shorebreak, his friends caught the next couple of waves.

"I saw Greg drop in and then I lost vision in the white wash." Then he noticed Mr Jarrett was in trouble and called to locals who were watching. They brought a horse rope, which Mr Barlow tied around his waist. For 20 minutes, he tried to reach Mr Jarrett who, like Mr Boynton-Shaw, had lost his board when the legrope broke.

Almost within arm's reach away, Mr Jarrett was eventually overwhelmed by the 9m surf and churning logs. Like Mr Boynton-Shaw, he disappeared into the savage sea.