Way back in January of 2016, right before the world turned upside down by four years of madness, Kelly Slater looked at a forecast. It was a good one for a fickle spot on Maui’s northwest side called Honolua Bay. When it’s huge on Oahu’s North Shore, Honolua is generally about half the size, but due to its unique spot on the map, when the waves do work their way in, they’re groomed to perfection. Long, hollow, and spattered with sections that both barrel and form ideal walls, Honolua is a real surfer’s wave. And Kelly just knew he had to be there.
The swell was a huge northwest that peaked late in the day. As the sun began its slow walk towards the horizon, the waves picked up. The crowd, as Marcus Rodrigues, the man who shot the footage you see above, was small and relatively inexperienced. And the waves, as you can see, were just about as perfect as perfect gets.
“Just watching Kelly surf Honolua Bay on a good day was incredible and a dream come true as he has been one of my biggest inspirations,” Rodrigues wrote on YouTube. “The lines he was drawing were so mesmerizing and he was surfing the Bay like he has surfed it his whole life. Filming this was so much fun, screaming after every wave with stoke capturing Kelly do his thing.”
Follow Marcus Rodrigues on Instagram and subscribe to his YouTube channel here.
