HI HI - Alec Cooke, 59, Oahu, 27 October 2015

The surfers are inevitably dwarfed by the waves they seek — 20-, 30-, and 40-foot walls of water that curl and crash into themselves with the force of a thousand bricks falling. With nothing but 10 feet of fiberglass between themselves and all that ocean, they paddle right into some of the world’s most dangerous waves and attempt to ride them back to shore.

This is the world of big wave surfers, the daredevil fringe of an already madcap sport. Alec Cooke was one of the biggest risk-takers of them all, a longtime surfer with a stuntman’s sense of adventure — and a showboat’s out-sized ego.
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Ocean Safety, Coast Guard, police and fire rescue personnel are searching for big-wave surfer Alec “Ace Cool” Cooke, who has been missing since he went surfing on the North Shore Tuesday afternoon.

Police said Cooke, 59, was last seen at 4 p.m. Tuesday, when he left his Wailua home to go surfing.
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His truck, with his dog and keys still inside, was found near Saints Peter and Paul Mission Church at 59-810 Kamehameha Highway at about 1 a.m. today, officials said. A surf board was missing. Shoreline and ocean search began at 8 a.m., Jenkins said.
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Police said Cooke is about 5 feet, 9 inches, 160 pounds, with white hair and blue eyes. He was wearing a white T-shirt and light-blue, plaid surf shorts.

Cooke is a well-known surfer from the 1980s, who has also worked as an extra and actor in Hawaii television shows and movies.

A high surf warning was in effect Tuesday afternoon because of 25- to 30-foot waves breaking on the North Shore.
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Cmdr. Arex Avanni, deputy commanding officer at Coast Guard Sector Honolulu, says in a statement issued Saturday night: "As with any missing persons search we saturated the area in an attempt to locate Mr. Cooke, but pending further developments, we have decided to suspend the active search."

Emergency responders found a surfboard near the Waimea River Thursday. On Friday, Cooke's girlfriend, Gail Howell, confirmed that it belonged to Cooke, KGMB reports.

The Coast Guard says it used airplanes, helicopters and jet skis to search about 8,930 square miles of the Pacific Ocean for Cooke.

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