We hear you paddled into Jaws the next day – talk us through that!
RS – Best day of my life.. Haha, except for my wedding day of course, ehem! It was really fantastic. It’s something I have wanted to do for years but I never felt ready for it till yesterday. I had trained holding my breath for a long time and I felt confident that I can go underwater in a stressed situation for over a minute and non stressed for over 3 minutes so that was a major confidence boost for me this year. I have been surfing almost every morning all winter to train up my wave knowledge and trying to take off as late and deep as possible, and I bought a 10” gun from Kazuma which feels absolutely amazing under my feet.
I went up on the boat with Keith Baxter and a couple of pro surfers. They all jumped straight into the water and I just sat there on the boat watching for about an hour. It was hard seeing the people wipe out and the clean up sets coming through. I know when I windsurf that I can see the sets coming and move around quite fast but when you surf, you really can’t see that far ahead and you can only move out to sea as fast as you can swim. Windsurfing I feel pretty safe, but surfing is another game. It’s almost guaranteed that you will wipe out. Anyway, after an hour, I just kind of made up my mind that I had to either jump in or just give up. I had paid all that money for the board and the boat ride, so I just decided to give it a go. I slipped on my Patagonia inflatable vest and my floatation wetsuit and jumped over the boat. I swam over to the right first and said hi to Kai Lenny, what a legend, watched him taking a couple of waves. Then I decided that with about 30 guys going for the right, I would have more chance on the left (I am goofy footed too) so I paddled over there. It was quite comforting to sit next to Robby Naish and Sean Lopez, two very experienced surfers, so I could follow them in and out as the sets came and went.
It took me about 20 minutes to build up the courage to go for one, but once I did, it was the best surfing moment of my life by far. The speed I had to paddle at was insane, I was just stroking and stroking for what felt like forever (for those of you who don’t surf, you can usually catch a wave with two or three strokes, but I must have done about 30 to get into that wave). I was almost about to give up as it looked way too steep to be able to stand up, but then I realized that my legs were being lifted up over my head, and that I had so much inertia that I couldn’t stop, so I jumped to my feet and made the most exhilarating drop of my life.
I caught 5 or 6 waves, 3 of them at least 15-18 footers I think, then I went for an absolute bomb and caught it but there was someone deeper than me so I had to kick out. What waited behind me was a vision from my nightmares, a huge wall of water so far out that I had no chance of making it over the wave. I swam on my board as fast as I could towards the wave but didn’t want to waste too much of my air by over exerting myself. I got close to the wave, ditched the board and swam down a tiny bit. I got absolutely pummelled. That is for sure the worst place to be to get pounded, right where all the force of the wave lands. It thrashed me around for a while but not too long as I didn’t feel the need to pull my inflatable vest before I started coming up. Unfortunately though, when I came up I felt that I had less pull from the leash than before and when I got to the surface, I saw only half a board attached to my ankle. Happily, one of the Skullbase crew was right there on the ski to pick me up and take me back to the boat. I was mostly just annoyed that I couldn’t get any more waves because I had been having so much fun, I asked one of the skis to take me back to the rocks so I could collect the other half of the board as a momento, climbed up the cliff, asked one of the onlookers for his phone and called Heidy to come and pick me up, buzzing more than ever, and went straight to Kazuma to buy another board! Can’t wait for the next swell!
“ Commitment is the main thing in big waves, really laying the sail down in the bottom turn and ripping the board around at the top, just really commit to what you’re doing ” Morgan Noireaux