Sorry again for another late post. It has been a while but I have been busy and have been waiting on photos to update you guys with a decent story of my adventures with Jamie Mitchell. So, it started on the Honolua Single Fin Contest weekend the 9th and 10th of January. Two days earlier Jamie called me and said there was looking like a big swell was going to hit Hawaii, there had been two giant swells prior to that for the El Nino season. I didn't want to miss a third chance at surfing Jaws (Pe'ahi)!! It has always been a spot I have wanted to surf since I was 13 years old watching Endless Summer 2 with Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama.
So when the Single Fin Contest came around I was frantically preparing, double checking and organising all my equipment for the trip to Hawaii. In between this madness I was competing in the contest as well as shooting photos for the new Honolua catalogue!! I made the final of the Single Fin Contest, however I had to give my spot up in order to make the flight to Sydney on the Sunday afternoon.
So we arrived on the North Shore dropped some of our gear off, took the essentials and headed to Maui with videographer Tim Bonython. The next morning the 11th January we were up at the crack of dawn, rigged all the skis and headed out. As we approached the line up there were some really thick swells pulsing through. We pulled up in the channel and within 5 mins there was a three wave 25ft set coming in!! My jaw just dropped and I looked at Jamie and said 'This is the heaviest wave in the world!' You don't really know until you see it first hand. Within minutes we saw two guys get pounded, one took a two wave hold down and came up close to the rocks, and the other straightened out and got crunched blowing his knee out. So we sat in the line up for an hour and just watched the wave break to get an idea of where to sit. Finally Jamie said 'You're up, because if you watch it for too long you won't want to do it!'
Jamie whipped me into 6 medium rights and he got me 4 lefts, one left being my biggest wave of the session.
We swapped after 2 hours and I drove Jamie, it was really hard work, a lot of jet skis going for the same wave and we got burnt 8 times in a row before I was able to get him a wave. I ended up getting him 3 rights- 2 solid bombs, 1 of which was a wipe out and the other a nice medium wave.
After the Jaws session we chased the same swell to California. We booked a red eye flight from Maui to Utah then Utah to San Jose. Utah was freezing, it was 0 degrees with snow on the runway at Salt Lake City, I only had a jumper, jeans and a pair of thongs!!
Once we arrived in San Jose we got picked up by Jamie's sponsor Surf Tech who lent us a van, from there we drove to Santa Cruz where Jamie keeps his ski and guns at Peter Mel's place. Pete hooked us up and gave us a room to stay in. The next day the 13th of January we drove to Mavericks. The forecast looked really good but when we arrived mother nature had the last say and this particular session was lumpy in the morning 12-15ft; by lunch time it cleaned up a little with a few 18-20ft sets. It was still a great day, the conditions weren't optimum, but we got to tow for 8 hours with only 3 skis in the line up. The next day we ran errands in Santa Cruz, Jamie got his tow board fixed after going on the rocks the previous day and I went to the Stretch factory and bought a second hand 9'8 gun. 3:30pm that afternoon we paddled out at Mav's, it was still 12-15ft. The first wave I got, the 9'8 felt unreal, it was pretty fun. Jamie and I got about 6 waves each for the evening.
On the 15th we headed back to Oahu and set up camp on the North Shore. On the Sunday the 17th we walked straight into another solid swell. We surfed Waimea Bay all day at 15-18ft. Clean, pristine conditions.
The past couple of weeks we have been hanging out, getting our stuff organised for the rest of the season. We got both of our tow boards weighted up with an extra 4kg of weight per board and we made an extravagant purchase with two new additions to the family, one's named honda and the other named kawasaki, both four stroke ski's coming with a special carriage double trailer. We are both pretty stoked with the little bad boys!!!
This afternoon the swell came up and we got another session at the Bay. It was 15-18ft and I copped a few floggings, but sometimes you have to pay your dues.
I am hanging on the North Shore for the next few weeks and I have some stand up contests coming up. I will keep you guys posted.
Cheers,
Billy
