Banzai Pipeline on Oahu is the planet's most famous wave, and a place where legends are born

The Orange County Register (MCT) - A seat at the 50-yard line of the Super Bowl will cost you a few grand. Likewise behind the home team dugout at the World Series, or center court for the final of Wimbledon.

All you need to see the greatest surf event of the year is a ride to the North Shore of Oahu, the luck to find a parking space and a blanket to spread out on the golden grainy sands that slope down to the Banzai Pipeline. At the 2007 Pipeline Masters contest, fans swarmed the surfers after each heat.

"It's awesome to see great surfing in such a relaxing place," said Paul Mastracchio, 36, of San Clemente, Calif.. "I've been to the Super Bowl, but at the Super Bowl you can't run down on the field and talk to your favorite player after a great game. Here, you can walk right up to Kelly Slater and say 'great ride.'"

Banzai Pipeline _ also called Pipeline or just Pipe _ is a legend on an island filled with surfing legends. The spinal cracking tube was immortalized in Bruce Brown's 1966 classic surf film, "Endless Summer."

Each December, Pipeline is the final stop of the Association of Surfing Professionals World Tour. After events in Australia, South Africa, California, Brazil and Tahiti, the top surfers crown the season at the birthplace of board riding, Oahu.

"The Banzai Pipeline is without a doubt the most famous wave in the world, and it conveniently does its extraordinary thing just the left side of Oahu's Ehukai Beach Park," write Leonard and Lorca Lueras in "Surfing Hawaii: The Ultimate Guide to the World's Most Challenging Waves."

The lure of Banzai Pipeline for the surfer and observer alike is the way water reacts with land. Each winter, storms in the North Pacific off Alaska throw off huge waves that roll unimpeded across thousands of miles of ocean. Then they hit the north shores of the Hawaiian islands.

At Waimea Bay, breakers the size of apartment buildings roll in. At Sunset Beach, it's a massive, undulating long wave.

But Pipeline creates something unique. It unfurls, tube after perfect tube, just a few dozen yards from shore. Great long rides and spectacularly nasty wipeouts. The tube is formed by the water surging against a shallow lava reef. The inside break is so close that you can see the agony on the face of a surfer when he realizes he isn't going to make it.

The beach where the Pipeline Masters contest is held each December is surfing's version of Fenway Park or Wrigley Field. Cozy, crowded and classic. The action is close even from the cheap seats.

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Sometimes there is a second and third tube, each larger than the one before, behind the first break. The ocean looks like a series of massive rolling pins.

Making it safely between and through those rolling pins is one of surfing's supreme challenges. A Pipeline veteran can shoot through the tube, disappearing behind the curtain of water for a moment before blasting out the end in a spray of water.

But linger back too long and the wave closes out, enveloping the surfer in the dreaded "green room" for a quiet, otherworldly moment before the bad stuff happens. Quickly. The lip collapses, slamming the surfer against the rocks. Worse off are surfers who drift up the face of the tube and are curled, head over heels, into the lava below.

Lifeguards say Pipeline is at its most dangerous when it is a moderate swell _ about 6 to 8 feet _ because it lures beginners into its maw. The sound of ambulance sirens on Kamehameha Highway heading to Ehukai Beach Park is common in the winter.

At its best, Pipeline is one of the most spectacular sights in the world. But unlike center court at Wimbledon or the 18th green at the British Open, the great moments at the Pipeline Masters happen haphazardly, or not at all.

I have seen the Banzai Pipeline on a quiet winter day, after the contest was over, when both the inside and outside tubes were booming. But during my four days at the 2007 contest, there was but one afternoon of serviceable surf the first day. The rest of the time the waves were decent for, say, Huntington Beach in the summer, but miserable by Pipeline standards. "Junky and small" were the words marked on the big bulletin board noting that the contest had been called off for yet another day. Heavy rains or wind can also wipe out a day of competition. There's even the rare occasion when the surf is considered "too big" for safe competition.

But still, there were moments. Mark Occhilupo, the 41-year-old Australian great, led for 29 of 30 minutes of his heat, only to lose on the final wave _ his last competition before semi-retirement. The usually low-key surfers raced down to the waterline to carry him up the beach, while fans with T-shirts featuring a wild-eyed, wild-haired picture of "The Raging Bull" from the earlier, infamous, altered-state-of-consciousness era of his career whooped it up. "Icons Never Die" the shirts proclaimed.

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"That was back in the day," Occhilupo said, grinning at the image of his younger self. "I came here to be at Pipeline, be with my friends and surf it out. To finish here, there's no place like it."

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IF YOU GO:

SURF CONTEST: The Billabong Pipeline Masters takes place Dec. 8-20 near Ehukai Beach Park. Admission is free. triplecrownofsurfing.com.

HANG YOUR HAT: Among the many rentals, my top choice is Sunset Beach House, an A-frame with Polynesian decor. From $450 per night. sunsetbeachhouse.com. Also check listings at sterman.com.

Ke Iki Beach Bungalows, at 59-579 Ke Iki Road, is fun and funky. keikibeach.comor 866-638-8229. From $160 per night.

Turtle Bay Resort.The only luxury hotel on the North Shore. 57-091 Kamehameha Highway, turtlebayresort.comor 808-293-6000. Rates from $241.

MUSEUM: The small North Shore Surf and Cultural Museum tells the local surfing story. 66-250 Kamehameha Highway, Haleiwa. captainrick.com.

MORE INFORMATION: Oahu Visitors Bureau: 877-525-6248, visit-oahu.com

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Gary A. Warner: gettingaway@ocregister.com

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© 2008, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).