good evening. oh my gosh!!! pipe was going off today. big huge barrels… when i left my house at 5:45am, i could see only a little white wash and the waves looked like 5′ or so. passed by lani’s and it looked 5′ out there too. i was thinking “yeah, 4-6′ backdoor”. i walked down the path by off the wall to check the waves. and there it was, a second reef 12′ set breaking that nobody wanted any part of. it was big, sunny, crowded, and freaking nuts. people were getting hurt and the sound of the ambulance gave me the chills…. i swam out for 4 hours to shoot some photos and after all these years from surfing pipeline, i’ve learned more in just one day. what did i learn? pipeline is nuts, crazy, and freaking shallow. i could touch the reef with my fins when i was shooting. i learned where the good waves break. which ones to go on, and which ones to back off on. i learned that you have to commit 100%. a split second of hesitation can cost your life. it happened before, and it will happen again. pipe is no joke and today was a wake up call for me. i’m going out there next time and be a smarter surfer… anyway, check out some of the action from today. can’t shot the best shots but can show some….
first, the crowd. there were about a hundred hungry surfers and bodyboarders. i counted 33 surfers in this photo, and there were many more. much more….
when your in the impact zone shooting photos, you see everything. who charges, who pulls back, who drops in, and who gets the best wave of the day. today was this guys day… i got the 8 shot sequence and it’s freaking nuts….
i’m super stoked on this kid. it was about 10 years ago i went on a trip to micronesia with flynn novak. he was a grom back then and always told me he wanted to surf pipe. back then he didn’t, but now he does. and does very well. it makes me happy to see kids dreams come true…. one day, flynn will win a contest out there for sure….
naohisa ogawa was the first japanese surfer out there this morning. a lot of guys get him mixed up with wakita because they are both japanese and they both wear helmets. when he took off on this wave, one surfer paddling out said “go wakita”. i looked at him and said “no, that’s nao”. that’s nao going freaking big….
**took 200 photos and got about 100 sick ones. stay tuned….
***oh yeah, kung hie fat choi. happy chinese new year…..
