When it rains in Hawaii, it pours. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Hawaii has RAIN. It’s a nice rain, warm and generally not the driving kind of rain that hurts your skin, but there is a lot of it. Especially in the last little while — enough to flood things and make a giant mess. But when it rains and the rivers fill to bursting, Jamie O’Brien is on the lookout for something: a river wave. The Waimea River wave, to be exact.
It’s not a new thing for Jamie. When there’s enough water at the back of Waimea Bay, it takes a few people with shovels and a few hours to dig enough sand out to help the river make its way to the ocean. And when it does, it can create a standing wave good enough to make the hearts of the best surfers beat a little faster.
The more water, as you’d imagine, the better, and this time around there was a LOT of water. “Oh my God,” Jamie said midway through the dig. “This is going to be gnarly. I’m scared… but psyching out of my mind.”
As the river made its way to Eddie’s bay, things slowly began to take shape. The wave got bigger and bigger until it reached Final Boss sized, and then it was well and truly on.
