Ricky Grigg poured five lifetimes' worth of achievement into his 77 years. The Duke Invitational win, paddleboard titles, advanced degrees, a SURFER Poll victory, hairy first-ever dives, plenty of academic recognition, and best of all the love of friends and family. He did it all with a smile you could warm your hands by. The surfing establishment thought of Grigg as one of their own. He was clean-cut and polite, didn't swear, and railed against ho-dads and hooligans. But Miki Dora thought the world of Grigg, too, and kept a small bundle of Grigg's letters in his personal stash box. That's the kind of range Ricky had.

My respect and admiration for Grigg, high to begin with, took a final step forward in early 2005 when I interviewed him for a Surfer's Journal article I was writing on Fred Van Dyke. This was 18 months after Grigg had been diagnosed with throat cancer. He'd been through chemo and radiation, and couldn't eat solid food for six months. Always fit and trim, he'd dropped 35 pounds. Grigg was feeling better when we talked. He was teaching part-time at University of Hawaii and was back in the water.

His voice was different. Scratchy and raw. That's the first thing I noticed when we began talking. But Grigg himself had changed, too. He'd always been confident, too confident maybe, sure of himself to a point where he sometimes looked down at the rest of us. No longer. Ricky Grigg in 2005—and 2014, for that matter; we spoke for the last time in February—knew what he was about, was proud of all that he'd done, was as no-bullshit as ever, but was now more generous and eloquent and empathic toward others. Moving into his final years, Grigg was still achieving.

Didn't Fred get to Hawaii before you did?

Peter Cole and I arrived in the Fall of '58. Fred had been there already for a couple of years. He kind of showed us the ropes. In fact, Peter and I moved into Fred's house in Waikiki; we were all roommates for about year. We'd drive out the North Shore together, and Fred taught us the basics of big-wave riding; the ABCs of the whole thing. Fred, you know, is a born teacher.

But Fred wasn't really a natural in big surf.

Fred used to say that he rode big waves because he needed to be tougher. It was a means for him to express his manhood. And he thought all the rest of us were doing it for the same reason; that we all went out there just to prove ourselves. Peter and I kept saying, ‘Fred that has nothing to do with it for us, we’re just attracted to it; it’s so beautiful. It’s irresistible. It had nothing to with proving yourself." I mean, yeah, there was ego involved, and you wanted to look good and get recognized, especially at first. But that wasn’t the real reason we were out there.

Fred rode big surf with more fear in his heart than any of us. He was tense, all his muscles were flexed and contracted; his jaw was set, he was ready to get wiped out pretty much all the time. It was hard for Fred, you know. And because of that, I'd say he actually had more courage than any of us. Peter and I weren’t really that afraid in big surf. Or not very often, anyway. Peter could swim forever, and swim fast. I wasn’t fast, but I had that kind of endurance as well. So on a typical day at Waimea, 20 foot, around there, Peter and I couldn’t get out there fast enough. It wasn't a fear thing, it wasn't a manhood thing. We just loved it so much.

What do you think is Fred's greatest strength?

Fred's greatest strength has to do with his humanness. He’s one of the nicest human beings I’ve ever known. A gentle soul. And it just permeates everything he does.

It's interesting, who quits surfing and who doesn't. From your crew, you and Peter still surf, but Fred, Greg [Noll], and Buzzy [Trent] all stopped.

Well, Greg rode big waves for the show of it. Greg was a matador. Buzzy was the same way. Or no, Buzzy was a gladiator. The whole point was to get out there and conquer. He still is. He has basal cell skin cancer, just breaking out all over his body. He won't get chemo or radiation, he just goes in and lets 'em cut lesions off as they appear. He looks like a warrior who’s been through a hundred battles. I've been working on a story about Buzzy for years. It's taken forever for us to get it done. And then finally it was like . . . he's got cancer and I have cancer, and we're both fuckin' dying. And he just said, "Let's do it."

He lives in this tiny little apartment. He's poor, he's in pain, has nothing left but his dignity and humility. But he gets up every day and he walks, he walks for miles and just tells himself optimistic things. Buzzy refuses to be pessimistic or depressed. Surfing is totally a thing of the past for him. He tells me, "Ricky, I’ve done it, I proved myself, it’s over. I did it."

You moved off the North Shore a few years ago?

I sold my house at Sunset in 1999. The same place I'd been in for 27 years. Basically I was driven out by the crush of all that was going on. It’s just all so compromised now, and so given over to commercialism and contests. There’s this tremendous competition, at all times, among surfers. There’s a vibe in the water now that’s so unpleasant. So I started to avoid it, progressively, by surfing different spots. Mostly I like to surf alone.

The East Side of Oahu, where the surf is so shitty that hardly anybody goes out (laughs). It’s usually onshore over here, and small, and looks terrible from the beach, so I have these little spots where I go out and surf alone. But I still have a great time. Surfing is even more important to me than it was 40 or 50 years ago. Not the turns and tuberides and all that. I’m just a kook out there. But just getting in the ocean. Those moments of beauty and solitude and peace. It's like, surfing still, after all these years, somehow makes things okay. The world’s fucked up and we're fighting a war we shouldn't be fighting [in Iraq], and everything is just as wrong as it could be, but somehow, I go surf, and things are wonderful. To be out there is total happiness. Pure joy. To this day.

RICKY GRIGG INTERVIEW: "SOMEHOW, I GO SURF, AND THINGS ARE WONDERFUL"

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