Photo: Zeke Lau // YouTube
Haleiwa giveth and Haleiwa taketh away. The North Shore break is as famous for its hollow waves as it is for its unmerciful beatdowns. Though Hawai’ian ripper Zeke Lau is no stranger to the place, even he can’t help but receive a thrashing or two when tempting fate in search of barrels.
He provided an unvarnished look at that experience in a recent raw POV video of a Haleiwa session, succinctly titled HALEIWA BEATDOWN. The beatdown in question comes around the 18-minute mark, when Lau takes off on a wave and immediately pays a price for it.
“That wave was so bumpy, I couldn’t even feel my board,” he explains to camera, after emerging from a mass of roiling foam. “Went from straight whitewater takeoff to just hitting speed wobbles and bumps. Then I just slid off and fell in the worst spot ever and took a ten-footer on the head right after. That’s how Haleiwa is. You get pounded most of the time, but hopefully you get a good one.”
