This was Waimea Bay on the 8th. Surf was kinda ragged. Been having some beautiful
sets though. I was there on the wrong day.
Posted on 02/13/2012 8:45:07 PM PST by nickcarraway
Alex Wade had always wanted to surf off Hawaii's north shore. But then he saw the size of the breaks at the Banzai Pipeline.
Dave Rastovich, 33, is a professional surfer for the Billabong team. As happens every December, "Rasta" is at Billabong's house on the north shore of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. He's there to bag some serious water time at the many breaks along what is known as "the seven-mile miracle", a series of world-class waves stretching from the hippie town of Haleiwa on the south-west of the north shore to Sunset Beach towards the north-eastern point.
Rasta is telling me about his activism on behalf of cetaceans. Or, rather, he's trying to tell me. The sound of waves detonating on the reef opposite the Billabong house makes it almost impossible to hear a word. No wonder, for we're standing just yards from the most famous surf break in the world, the Banzai Pipeline. And, in surf-speak, it's going off. Pulses of clean surf, generated by storms off the coast of Alaska, are marching implacably to the beach. Just before they get there, held up by an offshore breeze, they hit a lava reef, which forces them to rise steeply, then break in the form of the hallowed cylindrical tube that provides surfing nirvana.
The seven-mile miracle is the centre of world-class performance surfing, offering breaks which, to surfers, are household names. As well as Pipeline – so named in the Sixties because a surfer is said to have seen a sewer pipe being laid on the nearby highway, complete with a sign saying "Danger – Pipeline" – there are the big-wave spots of Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach. In addition, there are Off the Wall, Rocky Point, Gas Chambers and Log Cabins.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Gee, I was at Turtle Bay a little over a week ago. Windy, rained a little and not that warm...and the red flags were up not only there but along the beaches where the real surfers are. The waves just looked very angry.
I didn’t go into the ocean until we got to Maui and when I wasn’t looking a wave came and got me, tore my gold earrings off, slammed my chin into the sand and sprained my thumb. I went back to the pool.
The Pipeline Masters was just held two weeks ago and the surf was beautiful.
Beautiful can be a relative term....when were the Pipeline Masters? Maybe what I thought was scary and awful is something that is beautiful to a real surfer.
We were on Oahu from 1/28 to 1/31 and then left for Maui.
when i graduated they weren’t hiring any more surfers.
This was Waimea Bay on the 8th. Surf was kinda ragged. Been having some beautiful
sets though. I was there on the wrong day.
Beautiful or scary, anything over head high is awesome to anyone. Or should be.
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