We’re sure that you’ve seen by now that Hawaii spent the weekend surfing. Well, some people did. Most average surfers likely looked at some of the waves and decided they’d go and find a spot a little more… sheltered. You know where isn’t sheltered? Waimea. Jaws. And, starring in the spectacular footage you see above, the outer reefs. They ring Oahu, acting as a break wall for the largest of the Pacific’s waves. They break up the power before it can make landfall. But when it’s really, really big, well… surfers are going to surf them. For decades, people just looked. People mind-surfed. But as the years went on and we created new-fangled things that would help keep us alive, that mind surfing turned into real surfing.
Now, when a giant purple blob marches across the charts, PWCs are gassed up, CO2 cartridges in big wave surfing vests are replaced, and those massive waves tripping over the outer reefs can be surfed. Drones watch from the sky. And over the weekend, a cleanup set at one such outer reef had PWC drivers scrambling to get out the back.
“Caught this cleanup set mowing through the line up of skis,” wrote Mark Mahannah on YouTube. “The skis jetted for the horizon only to find themselves looking into the face of a BOMB clean up set.”
See more from Mahannah on YouTube.
Learn to push yourself, keep calm, and manage fear in heavy surf with Mark Healey’s Guide to Heavy Water.
