November 5th, 1957 , was the date that changed big wave surfing forever. Nicknamed "Da Bull" by Phil Edwards in reference to his physique and way of charging down the face of a wave ready to pounce on his prey. Jim Kempton, president of the California Surf Museum said "In look and style, he could be the Babe Ruth of surfing”. He had a bodybuilder's physique, he designed and always wore his iconic black-and-white prison-stripe trunks so that he would stand out in surf magazine photos. A fearless surfer and a superstar in his sport, in 1957 he was the first to surf Waimea Bay. 14 years after a teenager had died there local residents insisted that no one should surf there. His fellow surfers and the local Hawaiians thought surfing Waimea Bay was impossible.He was also the first to ride a wave breaking on the outside reef at Banzai Pipeline in November 1964 and lets not forget to mention that historic day at Makaha on Dec. 4, 1969, a day when even Waimea seemed too perilous to attempt, he drove west to Makaha where the pounding surf turned out to be at least just as dangerous. He estimated his chances of survival at 50-50, but he said he wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he hadn’t tried. After attempting the storm-roiled waters with a few other surfers, he tried it on his own. Noll paddled out against a backdrop of a “huge, massive, black wall” of water, stands up and he’s this little speck on this gigantic wall and you’re saying to yourself “Oh my God, he looks like a tiny cartoon figure!” He gets into his stance “Grrr, I’m going!” and he drops down, drops down, drops down, and gets to the bottom of the wave and it’s starting to curl over the top of him and steps off the rail. There was nowhere to go. That was it, ”Noll had wiped out at the bottom of a wave that he said was 10 feet higher than any he had ever surfed. “I was under the wave, and all I could see was a tiny patch of sunlight” he told The Honolulu Star-Advertiser afterward. He had to swim a mile against swift currents to return to shore. Fred Hemmings, another big-wave surfer who was there that day, told the newspaper, “If it had been anyone else in that situation, he would have died.” This painting is dedicated one of the most legendary surfers that ever lived, the one and only Greg Noll, a man of great character and an American pioneer of big wave surfing, a prominent longboard shaper, who owned a surfboard-making business, and had been surfing since the late 1940s. Greg Noll was a fearless surfer and a superstar in his sport who in the 1960s tackled stunningly big waves in Hawaii, California, and around the world.
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