Gentle and easy-going on land, a favorite teacher at Haleiwa Elementary School, [Angel] shifted into a different gear when the surf got huge. Intensity was what mattered to Angel. Riding a huge wave to the end was great and all, but Angel wanted to get closer yet to the power source. Right after takeoff, with a Tourette’s-like compulsion and suddenness, he might jump up from the tail of his board, tuck into a backward summersault, and skip down the face as the curl pitched overhead and exploded into the trough. “Or he’d take an unbelievably hairy drop,” Grigg recalled, “make the hard part of the wave, and then step off his board and let the thing destroy him.”