Jaws turns on again one more time before the calendar rolls into February.

I was in the gym on Jan 30th around 10:30am when I got the call from Erik Ader telling me that he had heard that a few paddle surfers were already heading out to the line up at Jaws. The swell was actually not forecasted to arrive until the following morning so I decided to finished my workout and then see what was up.  I called Erik back around 11am to see if he had any more news about how the paddle surfers were doing. He told me that a 15 to 18 foot set ( 50 foot face ) just rolled in and cleaned out the lineup.

I basically went into full on panic mode and drove as fast as I could to get home to organize my equipment and get down to the beach where my ski was stored.

In my panicked state to get out there I forgot to check the ski for fuel. I had a 45 minute trip to get up there and within the first 5 minutes the warning fuel light came on. I had to make a decision what to do and quick. Either go back in and re fuel or risk it and try to make it up to Jaws. 

Sets were already bombing the reef so I decided to keep going. I thought to myself that if I ran out of fuel I could always anchor the ski on the outside and swim in.

Luck was on my side and I made it to Jaws safe and sound. Only 5 paddle surfers and 1 one windsurfer were out. I quickly anchored the ski, rigged my equipment and headed out there.

Myself and Brawzinho had about a 2 hour session all to ourselves apart from the paddle surfers before other people started showing up.

It was a much better session than the last Jaws swell as the wind was a better direction and the faces of the wave were very clean. 

I caught around 5 good set waves before the wind did its afternoon funk and started bending offshore.

By the time some of the other windsurfers got out there around 4:30  pm the wind had already turned more offshore making it very difficult to get into the waves. 

With a nice 2 hour session in hand already I decided to stop around sailing around 5:30 and deal with my other small problem. No Fuel !

I proceeded to pack up my equipment and get out of there before the sun went down but my anchor was stuck on a ledge at the bottom and I just could not get it off the reef. I finally resorted to cutting the anchor line making my position even worse because without an anchor there was no way to stop me from floating out to sea if the engine did run out of fuel.

I slowly made my way back with another support ski to Maliko but from that point he was going into Maliko and I still had another 7 miles of ocean to cover. I thought about going into Maliko with him but once again I just decided to keep going. I thought to myself if I could just make it to Mamas Fish House and get to the inside I would be ok.

I took off down the coast and the surf was just pulsing with huge set waves. I saw 20 foot sets break from Turtle Bay all the way down as far as I could see towards the airport. Those few miles were so scary for me as it was getting dark, I had no anchor and the sets were so big I don't think I could have swam to the beach even if the ski did run out of fuel.

As luck would have it I made it to the inside reef at Mamas and I then just idled home in the dark until I reached Camp1 where I store the ski.

They say you learn something everyday. Well, I really did learn a huge lesson from that experience. . That I can go to Jaws again on an empty tank, maybe even further next time. 

JP

All images copyright: Tracy Kraft Leboe