When it’s huge and empty, look for Mark Healey. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Mark Healey has a niche: surfing waves so extraordinary that most people don’t want to surf them. When it’s absolutely massive at say, Pipeline, Healey can often be found somewhere even bigger. Somewhere bigger and less crowded. Somewhere on the North Shore’s outer reefs.
As you’ve likely noticed, the North Shore was recently besieged by a run of huge swell. For weeks, the waves pumped with no end in sight. People like Koa Smith couldn’t get enough, but Mark Healey decided that he’d take the opportunity to surf somewhere a little farther off the beaten path. The outer reefs are the perfect place to do that, and Healey isn’t afraid to explore on his own.
“We have a super solid swell,” Healey said. “It’s rising, we have south to southwest winds, which is unusual for us. It opens up some different areas.”
Although Healey grew up surfing the North Shore, this particular wave is not one that he’s ever attempted to surf — nor, as far as he knows, has anyone else.
“I wanted to do some of the outer reefs,” he continued. “It’s kind of mixed up and inconsistent, so I’m going off the beaten path. I’m actually going to go surf a wave that I just checked now that I’ve never actually surfed in my life… It looks like a wave to me. I don’t know anybody who has really surfed it before… if there’s a wave that nobody surfs, it’s usually for a reason.”
