The only thing left for me to do was to try and think of nothing and concentrate on my oxygen consumption, as I have no clue how long I’ll be under. The force with which the wave hit me was unimaginable. I was getting rag-dolled in all directions to the point where I had no clue which way was up or down, or how deep I was. It felt like a long time. I needed to wait until it calmed down before I could feel the lifejacket start to pull me up. I opened my eyes, and it really was like what all the locals had told me, completely black. I couldn’t see anything.
I started to swim towards the surface, at least four to five meters to reach it. My head pops out and I only just manage to catch my breath before the next wave is already upon me. I get shaken around with the same amount of force as the first wave. I resurface once again, I feel pretty good for the moment and I see a jet ski coming towards me and the driver extends his arm towards me. Unfortunately I can’t grab it as the third wave is already here. Even though this third wave was so much smaller it was by far the hardest because of the fatigue accumulated by the first two.
I pop up and this time I don’t miss the driver’s hand and I grab on hard and I get ripped out of the white water. My friend Francisco Porcella, who was the driver, concentrates on getting out of the impact zone before asking me if I’m alright. I’m so happy to have made it out, I’m completely ecstatic. I see my gear destroyed in the rocks so I’m forced to jump off the ski and swim in to re-join my friends waiting for me on the cliff. I now know what a wipe out at Jaws is and realise that you need to be seriously organised out there. We were completely unprepared and lucky that nothing worse happened. A big thank you to the crew on Keith Baxter’s boat, Francisco Porcella for saving me, the whole Brazilian contingent, Vincent for having motivated me, Boujmaa for all of the tips and to the photographers for having captured the moment.
CLICK ON THROUGH FOR MORE SHOTS AND SEQUENCES OF THE DAY – INCLUDING GRAHAM EZZY’S INSANE ROTATION OFF-THE-LIP!