Not to sound cliché, but Colin Cook is living the surfer’s dream on the North Shore, a big part of that is being able to surf some of his favorite waves that are all in his neighborhood. Another part is that he works in the surfboard industry, doing machine cuts for some of the world’s most celebrated shapers. Real talk, he even has a surfing world championship to his name. The biggest part of the dream life? Life itself.
Years ago, while surfing a break called Leftovers, Colin was attacked by a large Tiger Shark and lost his leg and nearly his life. In 2020, just before the pandemic, he won the ISA world championship for adaptive surfing in the above-the-knee division. Colin surfs–incredibly well, by all standards–with a custom prosthetic leg that he designed and refined. The attack was covered by us here at SURFER, as well as a follow up interview, Colin Don’t Quit, but there’s much more to the story and it seems like we came together for that very reason.
Colin and I shared many sessions this past winter and would give each other a smile and a nod but it wasn’t until a friend connected us, that I got to learn more about him.
One of the first things I shared was, that from our position at SURFER, we cover each and every shark attack we catch wind of–like most media outlets–for the simple fact that it’s sensational and is great clickbait. To be honest, this has always made me a bit uneasy–it feels wrong to hop on someone’s trauma for clicks and ad revenue.
I asked what it was like for him, to have his story shared so widely, and to continue to surf and grow after the attack. “It kinda shifted over time–I’m so much more than a guy who lost his leg in a shark attack. The recovery was intense and I dealt with a lot of pain, especially when I first started using a prosthetic and got back into surfing.”
Colin Cook
I’ve had to learn to live with more than the physical pain too. Sometimes people will just come up and be like, ‘what happened to your leg?’ It happens at Starbucks, or random places in public. Nowadays, I don’t even say shark attack because, if I do, then they go on to tell me stories about every shark they’ve seen or attacks that they’ve heard of…it gets old pretty quick.”
As for getting back in the water, the biggest challenge wasn’t the fear or PTSD, it was the actual mechanics of the prosthetic as an above the knee amputee. “At the time, all the amputees I saw surfing were below the knee. The knee joint is so crucial in your pop up that it was tricky to figure out a way. I showed all the doctors and they weren’t really sure what to do.”
Colin Cook
Rather than give up, Colin and his friends were determined to design something that could get him back in the water. Given his multiple first place finishes in national competitions and his 2020 ISA World Championship in Para Stand 3 Division, it’s clear that the determination paid off.
“My and my buddies built and designed one and kept making revisions. We made newer and newer versions to get to this point. Now, it’s like my baby. It let me get my life back.”
Colin Cook
Colin is still actively competing and says he’s surfing more now than ever before. He recently traveled to compete in Byron Bay, Australia, and is currently surfing in the Hawai’i Adaptive Surfing Championships presented by Hi AccesSurf. This September he’ll travel to Adaptive World Tour in Oceanside, CA.
As for other adaptive surfers and competitors, Colin says that French surfer, Eric Dargent, is someone he looks up to and looks forward to surfing with in heats. “Eric is the first surfer I saw with an above knee amputee and ripping, he was a big inspiration to me because he was doing turns and working the whole wave. He’s a really good surfer and he lost his leg to a shark attack too, while surfing in Reunion Island. I love getting to link up with him and always look forward to surfing with him.”
Colin Cook
Colin says that, overall, “The adaptive events are cool in that, not only do we get to meet up and hang out, but we get to compare notes on our gear and what works. There’s a lot of progression that comes from getting together and learning from each other.”
Related: “Fighting In The Trenches of Joy”: The Pure Stoke of Gnome Surf