Not small. Albee Layer on a keeper. Photo: Tucker Wooding//Screenshot
This might not be the biggest we’ll see Jaws this season, but having a full winter lying in front of you can play some mind tricks. On one hand, there’s genuine excitement when winter shows up, and that can be tough to put a cap on. Surfers are elite when it comes to embellishing the size and intensity of our greatest rides. On the other hand, we never want to peak early. Not in life. Certainly not in high school. And not when we have an entire season of XL and XXL swells to keep a watchful eye on.
Jaws went off this weekend fresh off the Thanksgiving holiday, and as the highlights and clips have begun rolling in the past 24 hours, one ride from Albee Layer is standing out. Social media and plenty of people who were on hand to see the session with their own eyes seem to be in agreement that Layer took the wave of the day.
“What started off as a really slow day with not too many great waves ended with one of my favorite clips I’ve filmed ever,” Tucker Wooding says. “Albee paddled out around 3 p.m. and it suddenly seemed to turn on. The wave he caught made my trip.”
Jaws is already a place most of the surfing population and 99.99999 percent of the human population would never consider tackling. And Albee’s ride on Sunday is just…insane. Wooding’s drone shot shows just how far he traveled through the barrel, while the angle from another prominent Hawaiian lensman, Marc Chambers, shows the sheer size of the tube.
There’s still an entire season to go, so it’s hard to imagine Layer won’t find his way into an even better ride somewhere this winter. But man, this’ll be in the running by the time spring comes around and we’ve close the books on winter 2025-2026.
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