With today’s swell forecasting technology, surfers are generally pretty aware when a swell of note is on the way. And while the now-called “Black Friday” swell was indeed in the forecast, the size of it was not.
“This swell kind of snuck up on us,” Mark Healey said, “the same as the Eddie swell earlier this year. This storm was kind of far away and they didn’t think it was going to be huge — 15, maybe 18 foot — but it hit the buoys last night like a ton of bricks. Giant. There are closeout sets at Waimea. Water’s been washing up on the Kam Highway all over the place. It’s really big. Twenty, 25-foot on the sets.”
With calm winds all day, Hawaiian big wave lovers woke up to the sound of crashing waves and their heartbeats hammering in their chests. It was tough to know where, exactly, was the place to be, but people like Healey have so much experience with the waves around the islands that if anyone’s going to be in the right spot, it’s them.
Riding a 10’4 — the same one he rode in The Eddie — he hitched a ride on a ski and paddled into a handful of very, very big waves.
