Hello Papa Waves

The Makapuu waves I posted the other day (6-7 ft) pale in comparison to what we were met with yesterday at Waimea Bay. The sky was blue in Waikiki, we had just got done with a nice morning run, cheerios and bananas in our bellies, and PB & J packed...we were ready for a day at the beach. Drive 45 minutes to Waimea....and hello clouds, rain and clouds and rain ALL DAY. Errrrrr. I think I saw 20 minutes of sun?

Anyway- we had our handy little umbrella, and nothing to do at home, so stuck it out...and it was so worth it- because the longer the day went on...the bigger the waves got. It was crazy- these are probably reaching 8-10 feet and yeah...I was on camera duty- I wasn't going in there!



Nice form Robby!


For those of you who aren't familiar with Waimea Waves...there's all sandy bottom, so lots of warnings for shore break. That means the wave is breaking on about 4-6 feet of water, so when it slams down, you're going STRAIGHT to the sand...which can be very unforgiving, and causes a lot of pain if you land wrong. If you were unlucky enough to get pummeled from a wave...what you don't know hurts worse. There is a vacuum effect once the wave hits, and it sucks back to get to the next wave. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get out of this once in the middle...so what happens? You get pummeled again...and since waves come in SETS...you're pretty much toast. This scenario happened time and time again yesterday-and can get pretty scary- Robby went out twice to help someone get out.


Now, for those of you who remember my bikini-being-ripped-off story from when we came for Concord Elite in April 2007, this is the place...these are the waves, and no-bikini is the end result for most women.

VIDEO: Press Play and sound will be loud...big waves crashing on sand isn't peaceful! ;)

Note: if you get past the suction part (as Robby has in this video- the waves aren't bad, because you are past the breaking point, so you're basically bobbing up and down. If you get to the point where they'll crash you- you need to dive directly into them like he did here, but that's the hard part!!!


My happy little bambino after a day in the waves...