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Will the World's Greatest Surfer Please Lie Down?

10th September 2006 Bruce Jenkins

Mike Stewart (photo: Fordham)

Pipeline 2005 (photo: Danny Black)

Pipeline (photo: Dan Russo)

Source: www.ibatour.com

He appeared from the mist of a raging Hawaiian swell, paddling in from the horizon at Sunset Beach. He'd thought nothing of swimming into the distant maelstrom to find his lost board, drifting to the outer reefs of Rocky Point, and then heading straight out to bypass the brutal current. Surfers braving the 18-foot seas could hardly fathom his arrival, but that was Mike Stewart, defining himself: a man from somewhere else.

This happened years ago, although it could have been yesterday or well into the future - any time during one of the most remarkable careers in surfing history. Argue the terminology if you'd like; make that "bodyboard" distinction for Stewart and separate him from those who stand. Just include him in your conversation about the greatest and most influential wave riders. Otherwise, you are gravely mistaken.

Stewart's story is one of loyalty and humility. It's about a revolution at Pipeline and a christening of Teahupo'o. It chronicles the most innovative bodysurfer who ever lived, and a man paddling to outer reefs through 30-foot sets with nobody in sight. It's about originality, competitive dominance, and independent thought, earning legitimate comparisons to Laird Hamilton, Kelly Slater, and George Greenough. It's about a comeback from financial ruin, with a strong and beautiful family at his side. More than anything, it's about a true Hawaiian: gentle, soft-spoken, and kind until certain lines are crossed, at which point a fury is unleashed.

Such a simple man. So many layers. Mike Stewart is a person met in stages, for you couldn't possibly digest him all at once. At first glance, he might have been a scruffy haole kid cruising Ke Nui Road on a bicycle, or a complete goofball with hilariously choreographed gestures and facial expressions. He might have been hunkered down for hours at a computer, a mad scientist at work. Then again, he might have surfed into daylight from a Pipeline tube he did not make - a notion that bends the mind a little.

One of the most respected men on the North Shore, longtime Pipeline lifeguard and ethereal bodysurfer Mark Cunningham, played an intriguing numbers game. "Take all the Pipeline titles won by Slater, Lopez, Rory Russell, Tom Carroll, Derek Ho, and Andy Irons," Cunningham said last winter. "Then add up Stewart's titles."

The totals: 22 for Stewart - 11 on a bodyboard, 11 more as a bodysurfer - and 20 for the others. "We get jaded around the North Shore, but think about what that means," said Cunningham. "Heat after heat, final after final, win after win. That's just phenomenal. Deadliest surf spot in the world, and he's been dancing with it for 25 years. I don't ever recall him, knock on wood, being carried out of there or even being in dry dock, and that's just ****ing crazy, too. I mean no disrespect to anyone, but Mike's the most committed guy I've ever seen."

We find Stewart today, as always, just slightly beyond the mainstream. At 43, he lives on the Hamakua coast of the Big Island with his wife, Lisa, and two children. That's home for Stewart, who spent his formative years in Kona and lived down the road from the creative mastermind of bodyboards, Tom Morey. Together, in that little corner of the world, they shaped a sport - Morey the inventor and Stewart the purveyor, unveiling its potential to the world. Such a person may not exist, for Stewart didn't just legitimize the sport in the minds of skeptical surfers, he transcended it.

"I've never heard anyone dog Mike for riding a Boogie board," said Mark Healey, one of the best young watermen in Hawaii and a regular in the Pipeline lineup. "It's obvious that he's an alien, compared to everyone else, so no one can say a thing. I've heard people say he's the Laird Hamilton of bodyboarding, which is heavy, but forget that. He's the Mike Stewart of wave riding, and nobody will ever catch up to him. I think he's the best all-around wave rider in the world."

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