what would you do if you were me? well, first of all, this is one of the biggest days ever recorded at HT’s in the Mentawai Islands. we were on a boat trip and the waves were very big and extremely dangerous. i took out a longer board because the takeoffs were crazy. i paddled into this monster and when i did a bottom turn, the whole ocean was dumping from a 100 yards in front of me. i know that the safest thing to do is to pull into this barrel and pray. but i knew the tide was low, i knew i would have hit the reef, and i knew the closest hospital is 12 hours away by boat. so i chose the other way to survive which was to go straight and pray the wave doesn’t crash on my head. well, this wave ended up crashing on my head, broke my board in 3 places, and realigned 15 bones in my body. thank goodness i didn’t get hurt. so looking back at this wave, i think i made the right decision because i swam to the boat, grabbed another surfboard, and paddled back out to the best day ever at HT’s. after this, i ended up getting one of the biggest, longest, and best barrels of my entire life. this was 13 years ago and i’ve never seen photos or videos of HT’s like this ever since. it was one of those swells of a lifetime…
the only thing i regret was if i had pulled into the barrel, i would have gotten a cover shot for sure. but i don’t have regrets so i’ll just take it on the head. haha…
