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Tom Carroll couldn't
believe his eyes. "Straightaway Jimmy
just boosts this air and starts to rip this
super tight, super hot form of surfing,"
recalls Carroll of his recent trip to El
Salvador. "I wasn't quite ready for it.
Jimmy was red hot, just tearing the bag out
of it, and from growing up in the middle of
nowhere, too. To see that is pretty
inspirational. |
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Tom's not the
only one, either. After spending
nearly six months on the Indies
Trader for Quiksilver's Crossing
trips throughout Central America
and the Caribbean, more than a few
top-notch surfers were taking
notice of the Salvadorian
shredder. The word was out.
"He freakin rips,"
claims Pipe charger Strider
Wasilewski. "At righthand
pointbreaks he's absolutely
unstoppable. Big airs, air 360s,
straight-up tail slides -
everything. He's definitely the
best surfer in Central
America."
"His surfing
is amazing, and his attitude is so
pure," says feral Huntington
Beach filmmaker Timmy Turner.
"He's so mellow, so humble -
just the perfect guy to be on a
boat with."
Even Indies
Trader Captain Martin Daly, who's
certainly seen his share of
quality surfers, claims Jimmy is
on of the best surfers he's ever
seen on the Crossing trips.
But the question
remains: having grown up in the
surfing isolation, is Jimmy
Rotherham ready for the
high-stakes sink-or-swim world of
pro surfing, or his he just
another flash in the pan of local
yokel stoke-dom? |
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Jimmy
Rotherham
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"Too many surfers take it all
way too seriously," says
Jimmy from his beachfront home in
La Liberated. El Salvador.
"They're getting paid to do
something they love and they're
still bitching about it, like, oh
there's no 600 lens here; I'm over
it. That's what I hate. When I was
in California, I knew there's a
bunch of photographers and all
that, but I just wanted to surf
good waves with not too many
peoples out. That's what I
love."
Bob Rotherhman, Jimmy's Dad, left
Miami on a surf trip in 1972, and
he hasn't been home since.
" I can still remember the
first day driving up here [La
Libertad, El Salvador],"
recalls Bob. "All the points
were firing, and this place just
grabbed me." In short order,
Bob met his wife, bought a
restaurant in front of the long
righthander, and settled down to
an enviable life of surfy leisure.
By the time El Salvador's bloody
civil war started and his gringo
customers evaporated, Rotherhman
was already catering to a
primarily Salvadoran clientele.
" The war lasted 12
years," he says without a
hint of complaint, " and for
me, it had a good effect, because
we're so close to the capital city
people could get down here easily.
Even if a country's at war, people
still gotta take a day off."
Bob Rotherhman, Jimmy's Dad, left
Miami on a surf trip in 1972, and
he hasn't been home since.
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Jimmy's
home town.
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" I can
still remember the first day
driving up here [La Libertad, El
Salvador]," recalls Bob.
"All the points were firing,
and this place just grabbed
me." In short order, Bob met
his wife, bought a restaurant in
front of the long righthander, and
settled down to an enviable life
of surfy leisure. By the time El
Salvador's bloody civil war
started and his gringo customers
evaporated, Rotherhman was already
catering to a primarily Salvadoran
clientele. " The war lasted
12 years," he says without a
hint of complaint, " and for
me, it had a good effect, because
we're so close to the capital city
people could get down here easily.
Even if a country's at war, people
still gotta take a day off."
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TC
stylin' as Jimmy watches on.
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Carroll was
accompanied on the trip by Strider
Wasilewski, Todd Morcom, Quik Team
Manager Todd Kline. Timmy Turner,
and two Nicaraguan locals named
Jimmy and Cailas. Although he was
the eldest of the crew on board,
TC had little trouble keeping up
with the young guns.
"Surfing
with those guys was great,"
said Tom. "The onshore would
come on daily around 10:45am, so
we'd get out there as early as we
could. We were averaging four-hour
sessions. Those guys were really
blowing my mind performance-wise,
especially the local kids,
considering they grew up in places
with no surf culture whatsoever.
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I
pushed it as much as I could,
though some of the tow-in sessions
were very full on. Towing-in can
be pretty ruthless on the body,
and on a couple of days I think I
may have over done it. I was
feeling that way after a couple of
sessions," he laughs.
"I think I
may have retired too early. At
some point I could have had a
break and possibly made a
comeback. At the time I didn't
want to listen to myself. I
thought I could just push through
it. It was a risky thing to jump
off tour. It wasn't so bad when
they had trials for every event,
but when the format went
two-tiered I figured it was too
much of a gamble."
His second son Jimmy
was born in 1978. "This kid was
just born to surf," says the proud
father, who made his son's first board
when he was six. "It was like
wearing a pair of shoes for him.
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Isolated from the
mainstream surf world, Jimmy survived on
a ration of secondhand surf magazines
left behind by traveling surfers and a
few outdated North Shore videos.
"Pretty much every surfer who comes
to La Libertad goes to the
restaurant," he says, "so even
as a little kid I was always around
surfers. They would have big parties and
hang around all day."
With a solid right
pointbreak out front, there was no lack
of surfing. But as Jimmy's skill
progressed, the only bar for him to
raise was his own. "He's got a
distinct, individual style," says
Rotherham Sr.," because he hasn't
had a role model to show him how to do
all these things he does. He's developed
it all on his own."
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La
Libertad.
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Watching him surf it
shows. A new school Bertlemann,
unleashing fast, snappy, rubber-man
miracles with a fluid, controlled flow,
Jimmy's style is entirely unique.
When he was 17 years old, a couple of
scrawny groms from California named
Bobby Martinez and Timmy Reyes showed up
at La Libertad, and after just one
session together the boys nicknamed him
"Jimmy Slater." A photo from
the trip shows the Salvadorian Slates
lofting a nice little front side air,
and a subsequent magazine article cast
Jimmy as the man with " his own
personal pointbreak," but also as a
kid surfing with "poignant
yearning"; a feeling of being
uninvited to the greater surf-world
party.
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Jimmy
"Slater"
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"Lots of
people down here don't even know
what surfing is," says Jimmy
of his homeland. "They see a
board and go, 'Whoa, what is
that?' It's pretty weird. People
live 30 minutes from the beach and
they've never even heard of
surfing."
Make no mistake:
El Salvador is no Costa Rica. Even
with the relative peace of recent
years, the country harbors
elements of volatile tension and
lingering conflict. Jimmy and his
father warn visiting surfers to
remove any valuables before making
the walk past the cemetery up to
The Point. " There's
definitely a heavy vibe about the
place," Tom Carroll says,
recalling how a bandito ambushed
him on the way out, eye balling
his shiny watch. "If Jimmy
hadn't been there it might have
been a different story. I might
have been rolling around on the
rocks with this guy."
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Remnant
of the revolution.
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Rotherham Sr. tells of a guerilla
missile flying straight through
his restaurant, bouncing off a
palm tree, rolling along the roof
and landing in the pool of the
hotel next door. And Jimmy and has
a friend who was actually shot
while surfing, climbed from the
water and drove himself to the
emergency room. When the emergency
room was too busy - offering only
amputation-his friend drove
himself to the next hospital to be
properly sewn up. "When
you've got a war going on, you
just go with it," Jimmy
speaks calmly about some shocking
childhood experiences which
include an M16 pressed against his
head. "It's part of where you
live. You don't get used to it,
but you can't refuse that it's
going on. It's real life, and it's
pretty f…ing heavy."
We repeat NOT
Costa Rica.
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No shapers. No surf
shops. No magazines. No contests. No
photographers. And there's another thing
that separates El Salvadorian surfers
from the rest of the world. While Jimmy
is the undisputed master of his local
point-breaks, until he was nearly 18
years old, he had never really gone
left, and he'd never surfed over reef.
His trip to Tavarua came as quite a
shock. "So we're coming into the
island," he recalls of his
first-ever surf trip, "and I could
see the reef from 30,000 feet above. It
was like, whoa, imagine what it's going
to be like down there. The first couples
days were kind of weird. Just
intimidating. I never put my back to the
wave before, and the waves were breaking
so fast and powerful. I was tripping
out. But by the fourth day I was like,
okay, don't look down, just look ahead
and charge down the line. It was really
fun. Exciting."
November 2003.
Quiksilver, who'd been sending him
some minor care packages for being
such a reliable liaison in Central
America, invites Jimmy to come
aboard the Indies Trader as an
interpreter and local charity
case. Suddenly world champion
surfers find themselves staring
slack-jawed as, from out of
nowhere, "the help"
starts man-handling local
pointbreaks with this lanky,
lofting flow. Humble and
hardworking by nature. Jimmy
continued cooking meals, swabbing
decks, and assisting translation
duties, but it was clear that his
role on the boat had dramatically
shifted. For Jimmy, lots of things
were changing quickly, as Strider
Wasilewski whipped him from behind
the Jet Ski into gaping,
double-overhead lefts.
Lefts!
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Going Left!
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"Strider was
like, 'OK, you go for the second
one in this set.' Well, the second
one was a BIIIIG one, and it was
like, all right, here we go,"
Jimmy recalls. "That was the
first time I ever towed. It was
Sick. Just going at that speed,
way before the wave breaks. You're
so comfortable, just kinda doing
cutbacks and big ol' turns, then
all of sudden it hits the shelf
and you're right in this huge,
perfect barrel. Just flying. Sooo
fun."
After nearly a half
year on the boat, Rotherham was clearly
accepted as full-blown surf-pro. At
least, by the compliments and accolades
failed to inflate his ego. "Jimmy
was the guy who most impressed me on the
boat," said Crossing super-hero
Kelly Slater.
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Swooping onto the peak.
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"He was cooking,
cleaning the decks, all round doing
everything to help out. He definitely
wasn't there just for himself. He was
part of the crew. He was charging. Not
just some sponsored guy getting first
class service."
" I got along
with everyone really well," says
Jimmy of his stay. "All the crew,
the Indos, Ben the cook, everybody. I've
never been on a boat like that at all
and, with the Crossing, it's all about
friendship. It's all about sharing and
having a good time. And that's what
surfing is all about."
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AND HE CAN FLY.
Jimmy recently
earned his pilots license and was
looking for a job as a commercial
pilot when Quiksilver wrapped a
big friendly arm around the
Salvadorian sensation and smiled
the color of money. Already he'd
scoured the El Salvador coast from
the sky, mapping out all its
secret nooks and barrels. Now he's
thinking about buying a jet ski
for a few of the bigger off shore
spots, having gotten his first,
sweet taste of gasoline-flavored
super-tubes in the Nicaraguan
bombers. Now he's thinking about
touring the world as a photo pro;
now he's entering contests and
maybe giving the 'QS tour a try.
Suddenly, the whole surf world
looks a bit different. Big.
Complicated. Important.
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But Jimmy's roots
run deep. He knows where home is.
Running the restaurant with his father,
looking after his two young boys - who,
at ages one and two, are already
infatuated with the ocean - and living
the simple, surfy life his father carved
for them 30 years ago.
" A normal day?" Jimmy says,
staring out at the point from his living
room. "Wake up and check the surf.
Surf from 5:30 to 8, and then open up
the restaurant. Its pretty quiet in the
morning, so maybe I'll paddle out again
at 10 or 11 for a few more. Then cover
the restaurant for the rest of the day,
until 6 or 7. Then come home and hang
out with the kids. That's pretty much
it."
Sounds nice. Sounds
simple. And it makes you wonder if the
glitz-and-glam life of a photo hound or
tour-warrior can compete in the long
run. Perhaps not. But in the meantime,
the light tables at surf magazines
everywhere are starting to pile up with
images of Jimmy Rotherham. And the
carrot is definitely dangling.
This is the one guy to watch.
Even if he remains entirely out of view.
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As at home in the kitchen as in the barrel.
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