Wet ‘N’ Wild with Rockin’ Fig:

One more big event on the North Shore of Hawaii, and the 2009 season will come to a close. Last week, the Assn. of Surfing Professionals world championship tour event started with the Billabong Pipeline Masters at the legendary Banzai Pipeline. The surf was still up, 8 to 12 feet-plus with really hollow rights and lefts. The surfers were getting shacked big time, pulling into some deep barrels. Huntington Beach’s Timmy Reyes, right on the bubble for qualifying next year, sadly lost in round-two action. In round three, former world champ Andy Irons and brother Bruce lost in a couple of close heats. San Clemente’s Chris Ward also lost and doesn’t look like he’ll make the championship tour next year. The current leader, Mick Fanning, had no problems defeating the Big Island hottie Torrey Meister, who had been on a roll until then.

But the big heat and major upset was No. 2 in the world ratings, Aussie Joel Parkinson, not making it through his round-three heat against Hawaiian wild card Gavin Gillette, who’s been surfing really well. Gillette found a perfect-shaped hollow right and did the disappearing act for a solid score to take the lead. “Parko” only needed a moderate six-point score to advance, but Mother Nature didn’t provide him with the opportunity. Just by the luck of the draw, Fanning was coming up in the next heat and round as Parkinson’s heat was over. Boyhood friends and world title battlers, Parko and Fanning hugged in the lineup, offering a big congratulations, as the pressure-packed last couple of weeks for the world title were over.

Nine-time world champ Kelly Slater was ripping on a short wide board, getting some sick tubes, and locked himself in the quarterfinals against another hot Hawaiian local, Flynn Novak.

East Coaster Damien Hobgood and the “Dingo,” Dean Morrison, who took Fanning out, were in the first quarter. Aussies Bede Durbidge and Taj Burrow did battle in the third heat, and C.J. Hobgood, who scored a perfect 10 on a deep left, went up against the “Rad Man,” Ventura’s Dane Reynolds. Finally, in deteriorating surf, Burrow took out Slater in the finals to emerge as the champion.

The Quicksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau had 20- to 40-foot surf at Waimea Bay early last week. San Clemente’s Greg Long was charging big in his last heat and won it, cashing a $55,000 check. Long caught a 30-footer-plus, made an impossible drop and then got mowed to score a perfect 100 points for that ride.

He rode more impressive waves to knock leader Slater to second place. There were broken boards, luckily no casualties, tons of spectators and a traffic jam on the Kam Highway for miles.

RICK FIGNETTI is a 10-time West Coast champion and a longtime KROQ-FM surfologist. He owns a surf shop on Main Street. You can reach him at (714) 536-1058.