Awesome Twosome : Surfing in Tandem, Couple Makes Big Splash by Conquering Hawaii’s North Shore

Bobby Friedman and Anna Shisler hung at the lip of the towering wave for what seemed an eternity before it slammed them down and buried them under a massive wall of water.

They remained submerged for nearly half a minute, tossing and turning in the always dangerous, sometimes deadly impact zone at Waimea Bay on Oahu’s infamous North Shore.

Shisler, all 109 pounds of her, eventually kicked and scratched her way to the surface; she filled her lungs with air and swam back outside the break, punching through another cresting wave to get there.

Friedman popped up a few seconds after Shisler, and began pulling his board in by its leash.

He turned and saw that the enormous wave Shisler had swum through was about to break on him, so he removed his leash and shoved his surfboard up the face of the wave. The stiff offshore wind caught it at the lip and lifted it out of the water; it fluttered through the air before setting down some 75 feet away.

He dived under the wave, and came up wondering what had become of his board, of his dream of riding giant Waimea with his girlfriend in his arms.

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Everyone watching, and everyone was watching from the beach and the lineup, had expected as much from Friedman and Shisler.

This was, after all, Waimea Bay at its notorious best: The waves measured 20 feet from the backs, with near-vertical faces measuring closer to 40 feet. Inexperienced surfers, even experienced surfers, had drowned under the weight of the thunderous breakers.

And here were two intruders from the mainland, with not a shred of experience in large surf, trying to tackle Waimea for the first time--on the same board!

“It was an intimidating thing because when we paddled out, people kind of looked at us like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ ” Friedman recalled, nearly two months after returning with Shisler to their home in San Clemente. “Then finally a famous local broke the ice; he came over and talked to us and gave us confidence.”

After the wipeout, their confidence seriously shaken, they chose to paddle back into the lineup only after another surfer retrieved Friedman’s board and towed it to them as they treaded water in the channel outside the break.

And when the next set rolled they paddled for another wave, and this time they kept paddling until they were sure they had actually caught it.

They jumped to their feet, Friedman wrapped his arms tightly around Shisler’s waist, she stuck one leg out for balance and the two raced down the sheer face bracing for the bottom turn which, to the amazement of everyone, they pulled off brilliantly.

“It was faster than we’ve ever been going, and the drop was steeper than any we had experienced,” Friedman said. “You’re staring down a five-story building and paddling, and this massive amount of water is moving at you. The sheer water mass moving at you is more intimidating than anything I’ve ever faced in my life, and I’ve been an athlete my whole life.

“We took three more waves and got out. And Anna just kind of got mugged by photographers. They told her that what just happened was a miracle in history.”

Not quite a miracle. But their tandem trip down a mountainous Waimea wave was surely a historic moment in the annals of surfing. No tandem, as far as anyone could recall, had conquered Waimea.

And by doing so, Friedman and Shisler have become the hottest pair of surfers under the sun. Surfing magazines, locally and abroad, have chronicled their North Shore exploits.

“I watched them, and the thing that absolutely floored me was that Bobby has only been surfing two years,” said Jeff Divine, 45, a veteran photographer for Surfer magazine. “For most people it takes two years to even be able to function out there in the water. And they’re out there doing lifts.”

Their phones have been ringing constantly with sponsorship and endorsement offers.

Friedman said they have already been featured in a beer commercial, have been called to promote a wave pool in Las Vegas and have begun working on a series of exhibitions around the world.

“This year we’re going to Japan, South Africa, Costa Rica, Australia. . . . What’s happening is, they want to see a tandem team that can take on big surf. They have to know that we’re going to perform whether the surf’s big or small, and that’s why they want us.”

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A few years ago, nobody could have predicted that Friedman and Shisler, both of whom grew up in south Orange County, would be the ones to take tandem surfing to a new level.

Neither of them surfed.

Shisler, now 23, was practically afraid of the water.

“I’d lay on the beach and go in the showers rather than go in the water to cool off,” she said. “It was like, ‘I don’t want to get tumbled again.’ ”

She did, however, have two qualities necessary to succeed in the sport--balance and poise, which she learned as a dancer in the Chicago ballet and as an apprentice with the Joffrey ballet.

Friedman, now 34, was a gymnast at San Clemente High and an avid volleyball player. He had the strength and agility necessary to maintain his balance while hoisting, sometimes on one arm, a 109-pound partner.

They met a little more than two years ago and, living near San Onofre, the hub of tandem surfing, they thought they’d give it a try.

“I remember my first time tandem surfing,” Shisler said. “For two weeks before we practiced lifts [on the ground] and they came really naturally to us. Finally, we borrowed someone’s wetsuit and a board to go out surfing.

“We got to my waist and I’m like, ‘Oh, I don’t like this.’ So he said, ‘You go sit on the beach and watch me.’

“And he didn’t know how to surf, so he would take off and, I swear, the board would go flying up in the air and do twirls and I’m like, ‘Oh, that doesn’t look very fun.’ This was supposed to be my confidence builder, watching him surf.”

They stuck with it, and with the coaching of former champions Steve and Bari Boehne, they excelled. Moreover, they began doing things that tandem surfers don’t do, riding in the tube and performing cutbacks.

“When I went down to watch them surf, they were not just doing lifts and stuff, they were carving and hitting the lip,” said Bill Stewart, a renowned board shaper who sponsors the two, along with many of the world’s top pro surfers. “And I said, ‘That’s different.’ He does a lot of lifts that no one else can do, like one-handed lifts, because he’s incredibly strong.”

Because of their different style, Friedman and Shisler eventually alienated themselves from the close-knit tandem community at San Onofre, a group high on poise and artistry but short on risk and adventure.

In the eyes of the judges, however, Friedman and Shisler apparently were a breath of fresh air. They began to win, and last year swept all the major tandem events, including the Buffalo Big Board competition, a contest dominated by Hawaiians, off Makaha on Oahu’s west shore.

But that wasn’t enough. They believed that to get the recognition needed to really boost their careers, and to put tandem surfing in a spotlight it has not shone under in decades, they had to do something truly radical. They planned the trip to the North Shore.

Stewart painstakingly designed and constructed a 13-foot board five inches thick in the middle, with tapered, double rails that would enable them to maneuver in the steep, hollow Hawaiian surf.

One of their stops was at Rocky Point, where waves break over a shallow reef of razor-sharp coral. “People looked at us like we were crazy,” Friedman said. “Because you just don’t tandem there. But we were pulling it off.”

They performed lifts and other traditional moves, but on one wave they pulled into a dry tube, and enjoyed the experience so much that they decided to try for the ultimate tube ride--at the famous Bonzai Pipeline.

“But the crowd, especially the lifeguards, didn’t support us there,” Friedman said. “They felt it was a big mistake. They said, ‘This is the Bonzai Pipeline, not San Onofre.’ ”

There was one exception: Gerry Lopez, who ruled Pipeline in the 1970s and early 80s.

“Gerry took us to the side and said, ‘I have faith in you guys. I know you can pull it off, so let’s go get it done. I’ll guide you into this,’ ” Friedman said. “So we went out with Gerry and he asked the locals in the crowd, ‘Hey, do you guys mind if my friends take a couple?’ ”

Nobody minded. Or if they did, they didn’t speak up.

Friedman and Shisler took a few waves, succeeded on some and took their lumps on others. One particularly hollow wave ended their session: It snapped their five-inch thick surfboard as though it were a toothpick.

Finally, while dressed for the wedding of a friend before they had planned to fly home, word spread that Pipeline was closing out, which usually is an indication that Waimea is beginning to break.

“We were all dressed in leis and everything, and had packed all the boards,” Shisler said. “We said, ‘Let’s go check out Waimea.’ And I was so stoked to see that it was breaking.”

She should be. It put her and her boyfriend on top of the world.