THOMAS TRAVERSA
Being out at Jaws sailing was really awesome. When you drop into a wave you can see the cliff a few hundred meters in on the inside, and then the landscape is all green, and then brown all the way to the top of the Haleakala. One of the best views ever from a windsurf spot!
The wave itself was easy to read this day as it formed a very big bowl from where the wave peels into the deep water of the bay. It doesn’t break everywhere like Ho’okipa for example where the wave has so many sections. At Jaws it is all about waiting for the bowl to stand, go down and try to make a turn, and before you know it you are in the channel.There are no rocks in front of you and no mean closeouts at the end of the wave, so you can really focus on where to position yourself, and try to go as deep as you can; as far as I was concerned there would be no surprises. This is truly amazing for such a big wave to break so clean!
I had one good-size wave where I was pretty deep and I tried to get close to the lip. Unfortunately I was a bit early to nail any real projection, but I still had a fun air drop into the face of the wave, enough to rev me up with a solid dose of adrenaline! After that experience I really wanted to hit one properly, and on my last wave I finally did it on a west bowl. The wave was not as huge as the big sets, but still it was over mast and a half and super fast, as all the waves are out there. I managed to come from behind the section and hit the lip from under like I normally do on smaller waves. The projection was insane and I flew very high and fast, and then landed in front of the wave, even though there wasn’t much of a wave anymore. That made my day and after that I sailed back down to Ho’okipa. Maybe one day I will have the chance to sail there again, and next time maybe I will try to stick a real aerial on a big one!