Mason Ho and Sheldon Paishon love to party wave. Clearly. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
If you’ve not yet seen Mason Ho’s Through the Doggy Door, stop reading right now and go drop a few bucks on it. It’s the story of Sheldon Paishon, who you’ve no doubt seen surfing in more than a few of Mason Ho’s vlogs. In this small chunk of the film, Mason and Sheldon are in Brazil, surfing a wild backwash wave that only a select few surfers on Earth could do anything with.
“Here is a dream backwash session that went down during the filming for Through the Doggy Door,” Mason wrote. “We didn’t get to release these full sessions until now.”
Through the Doggy Door is the story of Paishon’s life. He grew up on the West Side of Oahu, a notoriously rough place that’s far from an idyllic Hawaiian paradise. Many communities in the area are ravaged by drugs, poverty, still stuck in colonialism’s echoes. By 12, Paishon and his parents were living on the streets, but through it all, Paishon’s love of — and talent for — surfing shone brightly.
Mason Ho is a guy who loves weird waves, and that passion lives in Paishon, too. So when they walked onto the sand in Brazil and saw the warping fan of water featured in the video here, they were both excited, to say the least. But it wasn’t just the waves they had to be careful of.
“This spot had the most sharks we’ve ever seen surfing!” Mason wrote. “You do not want to land on one or right next to one.”
