Surf Adventures

By Charlie "Sharky" Cornell

Riding waves has been a part of Charlie "Sharky" Cornell's life since he was 12 years old. In "Surf Adventures", he shares some of the many adventures and stories from his years of experience surfing in different countries! This is a must-read for surfers, and anyone with an adventurer's spirit.

Sharky rode his first wave on a Canvas Raft at San Clemente Beach in 1967. In 1968, he moved to Laie Pt., Hawaii and his world of surfing began. Since that time, he grew up surfing on the North Shore of Oahu and has surfed in different foreign countries. Sharky isn't a pro surfer, but he's a true surf adventurer. After reading his stories from a life of riding waves, readers will certainly be inspired to embark on their own surf adventures. Aloha!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098387983

Book preview

SURFING LIFE BEGINS

I was 9 years old and at the time our family was living on a 20-acre ranch in Utah. When the summer came around my parents decided to take us to California for the first time, and to the ocean. We were going to stay with my mom’s life-long friend who we called Aunt Lee and her 3 kids Claudia, Dewight and Martin.

They lived in a beautiful home on a cliff over-looking the Pacific Ocean, more specifically, San Clemente. Once we got to the house everybody wanted to get to the beach. (One of my first thoughts was, this is a big ocean.) Dewight pulled out the canvas rafts and said, we can ride waves with these. I thought to myself (never seeing anyone ride a wave), wow, what’s he talking about? I thought we were going swimming. We gathered up all of our beach stuff. I thought we were going to jump in the car and head to the beach, but Claudia said, we could just walk down the stairs.

We all headed for the backyard. As I came around the corner of the house, I saw this large wooden landing and set of stairs. As we got closer, I could see the steps crisscrossing the cliff right down to the beach. I couldn’t believe it, their own stairway to the ocean. Once down on the beach, Dewight pointed out a wave and began to explain to us how to ride waves, how they move, and the white water.

The waves were breaking at about waist high water. Dewight and I took one of the rafts. Once at the waves, Dewight told me to get on the raft and hold on! The first wave came and Dewight gave me a shove into the wave. I can remember going very fast, and noticed how sparkling the water was. I rode that wave onto the beach until I came to a complete stop. I was so excited! That was my first ride...game on!

Dewight yelled out, come on back, let’s do it again...nice ride! Little did I know at that time, that was the beginning of a lifetime love of wave riding and surf adventures. About 2 years later, our family decided to move to Hawaii. My dad, F. Norman Cornell is a world class professional portrait photographer and he had landed some contracts in Hawaii. My mother Joy, was tired of the long cold winters of Utah and was ready for a tropical touch.

I landed in Hawaii August of 1968 and moved into a house overlooking the ocean. Within one week of being in Hawaii we discovered there were several boys that were in our neighbor and they all surfed. My brother Ken and I were both water babies and couldn’t wait to learn how to surf waves. There happened to be two neighbors, Brad Chang and Tim Thompson who both who had surfboards for sale. We asked them to bring their boards over to our house so my dad could look at them and talk to the boys about buying them.

My brother Ken and I were so stoked! When they showed up with both surf boards. They looked cool, with a lot of color. But my dad said, I have a few questions for you boys. Please explain how you maneuver the surfboards. Brad Chang explained the dynamics of the board and riding the waves.

My dad looked quietly at the boards, then after a long silence said, here’s the deal, you take the boys out and give them a good...real good surfing lesson and then come back and I will buy them, but I don’t want them surfing without someone giving them some tips first. They agreed and that was the birth of my surfing world.

I grew up and learned to surf off Laie point. The wave I surfed was about a mile out from shore. The waves were usually big peaks that had choppy faces because of the Tradewinds.

The leash had not been invented yet. So, if you wiped out you had to swim for your board, and if you got caught in a riptide you were swimming out to sea, and your board would wash to the shore. The best thing that could happen is the board would make it to the channel, a shorter swim.

The other wave my brother Ken and I surfed was called goat island. It was a small island off the shore about ¼ mile. At low tide you could walk on the reef with booties or tennis shoes. Once on the island you discover that it is home to giant goony birds. The island also had a small bay for swimming, a large tide pool, and of course, a super-fast wave breaking left. Steep drops, nice barrels, and to add to the excitement, 2 to 3 feet of water over a sharp reed covered with sea urchins.

This was the type of incentive for a young surfer, especially in training, to NOT wipe out! A year later when I was surfing the north shore for the first time, I rode a big wave at a place called log cabins that was quite shallow. All that surfing and practice at goat island really paid off.

For many years I have surfed breaks that were very shallow, especially in Indonesian reefs. So, learning that young to ride those types of waves really helped me throughout my life.

We grabbed our boards and climbed down the side of the volcanic point. Brad said to me, you have to wait for the wave to hit the side of the point, then jump on your surfboard and the surge from the wave hitting the point will push you out.

Now watch... he timed the wave perfectly and jumped. Once he was out, he turned around to me and said, when I yell go... you do the same. a wave hit the point and he yelled GO!. I jumped into the air and hit the water hard, but stayed on my board. The surge really pushed me out to sea fast and it seemed like slow motion in my mind. I flashed back to my first wave in San Clemente two years earlier. I realized right then and there that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

In the last 50 years I have been blessed with many wave adventures in many different countries. For those people that have had surf adventures, I hope you relate to some of these stories and situations. For those that never have experienced a surf adventure, I hope these stories will inspire you to do whatever it takes to have a surf adventure anywhere.

I would like to publicly thank my parents for getting me my first surfboard and supporting me in my lifetime of surf adventures. To the many surfers, some all-time legends and soul surfers and so many surf buddies I have had a chance to share waves with. To all the shapers that have customized so many boards for me through my surfing life.

This book is also for all the little surf gromes that are the future and help to continue adding to the sport with new moves, may you surf all your life. To all surfers: love and protect the ocean which blesses us with these waves...Pass on the stoke!

Aloha,

Sharky Cornell

Ken, ‘Pops’, Sharky 1st surfboards, 1968 Laie Point

Ken holding a Mike Hynson Pipeline special

Tom Cornell, Super Surfer at age 12

Laie Point Sharky, Lance Petersen, Alan Anae We hiked down the lava flows for the waves

Large peaks at Laie Point prepared us for the big waves of Sunset Beach and North Shore Goat Island in the background

Winter 1969, Lance Petersen, Sharky, Alan Anae, ken Cornell

1st year surfing with my new buddies Our 30-year reunion Paul Cornell, Ken Cornell, Dr. Alan Anae, Sharky

Sharky practicing his Switch Stance

FAVORITE SURFBOARDS

This 7-foot Swallow from Mark ‘Foo’ Surfed many great waves during my South Pacific Tour

Sunset Beach 1975 Sharky & Mark Torterotot

Bali Pad, 1994 with the wave ‘Impossibles’ in background

Bali 1990 with a couple magic boards 7′3″ Blue-striped Big Wave Rider & a 6′6″ Ripcurl from Pancho Sullivan

Sharky’s New 6′9″ that I designed & Bushman Shaped

My surfboard design. The Flying V 6′6″ Mark Smith Airbrushing

Sharky’s 50th birthday surfing backdoor pipeline on his magical 8′3″ Eric Arakawa

Santa Cruz Mountain Retreat. Mike Croteau 7′6″ Swallow tail for riding Steamer Lane

Sponsored by Chuck Buresh. A 6′4″ Surfers Alliance by Mike Casey

PROFILE

Longest Lefts Ridden

1. Impossible – Bali, Indonesia

2. Desert Point – Lombok, Indonesia

3. Secret Spot – New Zealand

4. Puerto Escondido Point – Mexico

5. Airport Lefts – Bali, Indonesia

6. Giant Hilo, Harbor Big Island - Hawaii

Longest Rights

1. Laniakea North Shore - Hawaii

2. Deveraux – Goleta, Central California

3. Rincon – Central California

4. Outside Steamer Lane to Cowell’s Beach - Santa Cruz, California

5. Bombora hook – Central California

6. Hanalei Bay Kaua’i - Hawaii

Biggest Right Barrels

1. Backdoor pipeline - Hawaii

2. Puerto Escondido - Mainland Mexico

3. Outside Sumatra - Indonesia

4. Tiger Tracks – Java, Indonesia

5. Giant Hobsons – Central California

Right Longest Barrels

1. Burleigh Heads - Australia

2. Off the wall - Hawaii

3. Laniakea – North Shore, Hawaii

4. Rincon – Central California

5. Outside Reef – Bali, Indonesia

Craziest Waves

1. Ins and outs – Tahiti

2. Crystal Palace