Chris Bertish opens up about his Mavericks win

Chris Bertish has just arrived home from a crazy whirlwind journey to California and back in less than 5 days. Along the journey he managed to clock up over 62 hours of travel time, lost his baggage and oh... managed to win the Mavericks Big Wave event in surf that Twiggy amongst others claim was at the very limit of what can be paddled into and ridden.

Chris called me from the airport in London on Monday on his way home to fill me in on the going's on of the past few days, but I didn't really get a chance to chat to him properly before his cellphone battery died. His journey ended today when he arrived home to Cape Town amidst great fanfare and spraying Champagne at the airport. Curious as to what exactly went on during the journey I gave Chris a call this evening to get the gist of exactly what this trip meant for him.

Chris informs me that he hasn't even had time to settle down yet as straight from his arrival at the airport he had to go to a series of meetings to sell his range (Chris works as a sales rep for O'Neill)

"And it looks like I'll be working the whole night hey. I still haven't even checked my emails so I have no idea what’s in store for me when I open my inbox." claims Chris. I joke that he probably has requests for interviews from every magazine in the world and an invite to be on the news this evening.

"I already did a TV interview as I arrived at the airport and I ‘m not even sure what that was for but I have a meeting with E-TV tomorrow morning."

The first thing I have to know from Chris is what it's like arriving home after this journey to a crowd of fans and friends cheering his arrival at the airport.

"Ahhh jeez well, it's been such a quick whirlwind trip, it doesn't feel like I have actually left, been back to California, won a contest and returned.” he claims, “Last Thursday afternoon after working the whole day I thought there was a possibility that I might go, but I wasn't certain that it was really going to happen. I was watching the swell online and it was looking pretty good. I was in back-to-back meetings and I literally went from my last appointment to the airport at about 7pm. I didn't have a clean set of clothes. Didn't have a toothbrush, I didn't have anything with me except my laptop, my wetsuit over my shoulder and my board which I had in my car. I was still sitting at the airport trying to decide whether to go at like 10pm because they hadn't given the green light for the event to be on yet. (The Mavericks event only runs if they get 2/3rds YES votes from the competitors) At that point they hadn't finished up with the voting as to whether to run the event and only had 9 votes YES and 4 votes NO, and they had to have at least 15 votes YES for it to run. So I had to make a decision before they had even made a call to run the event because if I didn't go now I would miss the last flight out and ultimately miss the event if it ran anyway. I was stressing and I just thought 'F*ck well, I just can't wait any longer' and I sent them a group e-mail saying something like 'Screw rationality, if you guys are going to blow this swell then it’s probably the last chance we are going to get, so I don't care what happens, as far as I am concerned the event is ON and I am just about to get on the plane, SO LET'S DO THIS THING and get it over with."

Chris laughs at the thought of this and then continues, "And then I just bailed. Got on the plane, traveled like 36 hours from Cape Town to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Detroit and when I arrived in Detroit they couldn't get me onto a flight to San Francisco, so I was put on the waiting list for the next flight. Finally I got squeezed onto a flight as the last guy on the waiting list after I begged the lady at the counter to let me on. I arrived in San Francisco at around midnight and found out that my baggage hadn't arrived (by baggage Chris obviously means his board and his wetsuit).

So there I was arriving for a major international event and I didn't have a board or a suit. The airline informed me, ‘it will be okay we’ll send it to your address as soon as it arrives tomorrow.’ I was like, 'You don't understand... I have this major event that starts in a few hours, I need my equipment.' and they nonchalantly replied that ‘it will be fine, you can just rent a board at the beach.’ With this Chris and I pack up laughing.

Chris continues, "From there I basically went to Jeff Clark's house and slept for like 4 hours, went straight down to the event, got a lift out to the lineup and surfed the event for the whole day, right through to the final, came in, went to Jeff Clark's surf shop and signed posters and autographs, straight from there to the prize-giving and after-party, then back to Jeff's place, slept a few hours, woke up, had brekkie, then straight back to the airport for another 46 hour trip home.

I arrived back to a lot of really stoked people waiting for me at the airport, which was really something special and mind-blowing. So ja it was a bit of a whirlwind trip and like I said it doesn't even feel like I have been to Cali and back.”

I question Chris whether his trip to Northern California at the end of last year put him in a better place and prepared him for this event. Chris exhales loudly as he prepares to speak and I know that he has something serious to tell me, "I don't know man... I think the Oregon Big Wave event definitely helped me even though I was supposed to win it and ended up third..."

I sense major disappointment from Chris regarding this particular event, "I got pretty bummed and despondent about that event because it just seems like all the times that I have been over to America to surf an event or whatever, I have always been screwed over, so when I arrived back home in January after that trip to Northern Cali and Oregon I was pretty over it. I was over everything, I was over California, I was over Americans, I was over them not running the event, I was over getting screwed over, and I was like 'you know what! I am done! They should have run the event, it's not going to happen. I am giving up big wave surfing, I am not going back to California ever again, that’s it for me... I'm done!'

Before this Mavericks event I had already told myself that this is my last year, that I will give it my best and that whatever happened, happened and after that I must just move on, settle down and focus on different things that don't extort my time, my energy and my finances." I laugh and tell him that this win must definitely have him thinking again. Chris laughs and agrees.

The Mavericks event this year is one for the record books, with waves at the very limit of what is humanly possible to actually paddle into. Greg Long mentioned that the entire book of big wave surfing was rewritten during this event and Chris has just headlined the story. Chris has achieved some pretty amazing things in his career, winner of the XXL award for biggest wave of the year, first person to paddle surf Jaws, first guy to SUP Dungeons amongst countless others.

I ask Chris if this ranks at the very top of his lifetime achievements. Chris pauses for a second, inhales and then answers with a hint of nostalgia in his voice "You know what... Just to be part of that event, on that day was a privilege and an honour. That event has a reputation for the heaviest big waves over and above any other big wave event on the planet. To see Mavericks breaking at that size when on any other normal day would have been a tow-surfing day as it was so, so big and it was breaking so far outside of all the usual lineups we had ever surfed before. The photos that will come from that day and the waves that were ridden and the magnitude of how heavy the waves were will go down in history as probably the biggest waves surfed EVER in the history of paddle surfing. To say that you were a part of that event is pretty damn special, but to say that you surfed in it, made the final and actually won that event is really a dream come true, it's like a fairytale. I couldn't even script it better if I wanted to. It's one thing being invited to that event, it's a bigger thing to make the semi finals, it's a huge thing to make the final then it's absolutely mind-blowing to actually win that event in those historical waves. What more is there left for me to do? If I died tomorrow I would die knowing that I have done everything I had dreamt of doing in my entire life"

At this point I am not sure if Chris is crying with joy or laughing, but one thing I am certain of is that this definitely answers my question as to where this ranks in his list of lifetime achievements.

As many of you will know Chris has been traveling around the world chasing giant waves for the past 10 years, and all this time he has done so without a major sponsor to pay the way.

I ask Chris how he has managed to achieve this. "You know what Calvin, these trips to California over the past 3 months have cost in the region of about 90 grand and luckily I have had help from a few sponsors as well as from money that was raised at various fundraisers. But all this, although it helped tremendously, still didn't cover the costs of the trip. I had to put in about 30 or 40 grand of my own money. I was running around on Thursday afternoon before I left borrowing money from my brothers and two of my friends just so that I would have enough money to pay for my ticket over there. My credit cards are maxed, my overdraft is maxed and I think I had about R700 in cash on me when I left to go to Cali. People just don't have any idea how draining this event and doing what I have been doing for the past ten years have been on me mentally, physically and financially. It has sucked me completely dry.

I am tired from the event, but I am just completely exhausted from knocking on the door and keeping at it for so long, and this was going to be the last straw for me, I was like, 'You know what, if I get there and they don't run the event, that's it for me I'm never going back as I can't actually spend any more money or drain myself further than I have right now.' It's just beyond insane. But now after this win I realise that there is always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, you just have to work damn hard to get there. It's pretty funny, in America everyone thought it was so unbelievable to see this guy, me, who just does big wave surfing as a hobby and tries to scratch enough money together to get over there to these events and has tried for so long and never really got anywhere to come from nowhere to win this event while all these other guys were professional surfers with major sponsors." I joke with Chris by saying, "You just rent a board on the beach and win the event!" With this Chris packs up into a fit of laughter and it seems the conversation is over.

Chris would really like to thank the following people for helping him out and making these trips possible: O'Neill, Naish, Ocean Minded, True Blue Travel, Corona and then he also thanked all the South Africans that have really been there to help him get over there, been behind him all the way and believed in him.