All in a days work for Kai Lenny. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
Kai Lenny is not afraid to search for waves. That’s something interesting about surfing: you’ll be hard pressed to find a surfer, no matter their skill level, that’s not interested in the search. Kai’s been around the world on that hunt, and recently he, along with brother Ridge and Natxo Gonzalez found something in El Salvador.
The mission started early — the 3:45 a.m. kind of early. “We are headed to a super-secret wave,” Lenny said. “We don’t know what to expect, but it should be pretty interesting.”
It’s a lot of work, though, doing what Kai did. At 4:00 a.m., they were at the beach to leave the skis. Then they headed to the marina to load up all the other stuff they had with them.
“Then right as the light is cracking the horizon,” Kai explained, “we’ll hopefully hop onto these Jet Skis and get out there to that mystical wave we’ve heard about.”
They were a little later than expected (but not by much), and the sun had cracked the horizon by the time they were motoring out, but when they got close to where they were headed, they realized that the stars had aligned.
“It’s exactly what we’ve been looking for,” Kai said from the back of the ski. “On the way out we just saw these roping barrels, kind of reminiscent of Mundaka or Maalaea.”
It didn’t take long for them to find out that they had chosen wisely. The first wave, in fact, gave Kai a little barrel after he stepped off the ski. It wasn’t all just barrels and laughs, though. At one point, one of the photographers with them disappeared somewhere into the vastness of the ocean, which was a little worrisome. Kai and Naxto took matters into their own hands and managed to find him bobbing around out there.
“That was intense,” Kai said after they plucked him from the sea. “It’s dangerous out here. We’re in the middle of the ocean in front of a giant river. Who knows what’s going on out in these waters?”
Once the important stuff was taken care of, it was right back to step offs — and it was a day they’re all going to remember.
