“I Just Shouldn’t Have Gone.” Gary Linden on Greatest Wipeouts

“If you surf Puerto, you’re going to wipeout.” So says big wave legend Gary Linden–and if anyone knows it, it’s him. Linden’s been involved in surfing massive waves for decades, which, of course, makes him a little older than your average big wave guy. Gary’s 65-years-old, and he’s still charging just as hard as anyone out there. But charging hard doesn’t equate to not getting pounded… although commitment helps, it doesn’t pay to commit to the wrong wave. And, like Gary’s found out a million times before, this one was not the right one. But Linden knows that one wrong wave doesn’t knock you off the horse. “Then I went and paddled back out,” he remembered, “just to redeem myself.”