"Death is a stone’s throw away, always, but to realise that. I was overwhelmed. It was one of the heaviest moments of my life.

The carrot-topped king of Pipeline and sad-eyed degenerate Jamie O’Brien, who is forty, has reprised his near-death at the Waimea Bay rivermouth from last winter.

Do you remember?

The famous Waimea River had become swollen like never before following wild rains (climate change, non-use of recycling bins, driving cars with internal combustion engines etc) and locals had opened it up to create the biggest rivermouth waves ever seen.

Jamie tried to ride it only to be sucked out to sea and when he eventually returned he said he’d almost died.

“Gnarliest experience ever…I got sucked into the vortex of all vortexes!”

Now, in a piece to camera on YouTube, O’Brien has taken his one million fans back to that terrible day.

“I knew that it was going to be the biggest river wave ever ridden. It was sending me everywhere. I was like, ‘Don’t fall on this, Jamie. Don’t fall.’ I couldn’t control my board, and I honestly just fell right back. It’s like a 10 or 12 foot wave, and it sucked me back. Then there was another wave, and it was just as big, and I’m like, ‘oh my god. I’m gonna die. My leash is gonna break. I’m in a very bad spot.

“That wave just tumbles me, and tumbles me, and tumbles me…then, boom. It lets me out where the river meets the ocean. And the [ocean] waves were 15 feet. Huge Waimea. Probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t even know where I am. I pop up in the middle of Waimea Bay, 300 yards out in the middle of the ocean and the waves are 15 feet. Not a good idea.”

Dying in novelty waves is a speciality for O’Brien. Five years ago, he almost perished among rocks at Waikiki during a one-foot swell.

Fooling around in Waikiki, Jamie was examining an interesting rock on a breakwall and “stating the obvious,” says Jamie, “I turned my back on the ocean. Honestly, I had put my hand up in front of my face at the last second and I face-planted into my hand. It almost knocked me out just hitting my hand. I almost died at one-foot Waikiki. I almost died at one-foot Waikiki. Frick. I got so lucky.

“I was thinking about it a lot. You do all this crazy shit your whole career, crazy waves, sitting yourself on fire, and you almost die at one-foot Waikiki. Death is a stone’s throw away, always, but to realise that. I was overwhelmed. It was one of the heaviest moments of my life. I still trip out when I watch the clip. That night, I was laying in bed, thinking, that I almost died at Waikiki. Literally.”

 

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The self-described "best boxer in the UFC" thrills fight fans with a surprise cameo at a Japanese wave tank… 

If you love to see men beat hell of each other, but with a little honour and skill and on a canvas floor slippery with their blood, there ain’t a better soul to watch than the Hawaiian UFC featherweight Max “Blessed” Holloway. 

The self-described “best boxer in the UFC” makes his opponents look slow and clumsy as he rocks and sways and paints their faces and guts with his little fists. 

Holloway, who is thirty-one, is the husband of Hawaiian surf star Alessa Quizon (once the gal of no-longer-balding Caio Ibelli) and grew up on Oahu’s west side, which is also famous for the production of Sunny Garcia and Johnny Boy Gomes.

A few months back, Holloway stunned fight fans when he conquered the famous Waco pool and over the course of the past few days has proved his skills weren’t a fluke when he commanded the Shizunami Surf Stadium a couple of hours out of Tokyo.

Sharing the waves with his former pro wife Alessa, Holloway attempts a high-line into a tube, performs a shallow-water Haka and poses for photos on the shoreline. 

He ain’t the only Hawaiian fighter who likes his pools.

Hall-of-famer BJ Penn nearly became surfing’s first pool fatality three years back when he was sucked outta the tank and into the engine room.

“Last year when I got sucked into a wave pool engine room and thought I was going to die… I kept thinking “don’t die for your kids” I was surfing for a about an hour and the line started getting longer to catch the wave. I was sitting next to the owner of the wave pool by the “wall” where the waves come from. The first wave it shoots out is a dud to get everyone ready for the next wave.

The dud wave came back and because I was so close to the wall the wave swallowed me and pushed me and my surfboard underneath a huge cement wall. I remember feeling like I was getting sucked in a pipe and at that moment I got scared. It ended up pushing me into a big dark cement room that fills up with water to push the next wave for the wave pool. It felt like I was in the movie SAW or Final destination. The room would fill up with water to the top and I would hold my breath and then it would push the water out to make the wave and it was really rough inside there. Everything I bumped up against in the room that hurt me got infected. I got a bad sinus infection and a couple facial fractures from getting knocked around the cement walls and from the fractures the dirty water got in my face and infected my whole sinus. I was on antibiotics for three weeks for my face.

While I was in the wave pool engine room I knew that one of my friends outside from big island is a legendary surfer and I knew he would come in there to rescue me so I stayed calm. A lot of other people might have panicked and maybe gave up but I just stayed strong for my kids. Anyway to make a long story short I survived that mother fucker 😛😛😛 !! The name of the people and water park have been left out. I not the kine guy shows up to your house to play and gets hurt and tries to sue you so all love ❤️ to everyone who helped me get there and helped me survive 🤙 Maybe I was the first guy in history to get sucked into a wave pool engine room while it is in operation but no matter what happens in life and no matter how scary it is if I can offer you any advice I would just say to “stay calm”. If I didn’t fight tough cunts my whole life I might have panicked, but it was just another day in the office.”

“All in plain sight for the blind sheep to see…”

The temporarily crippled eleven-time world surfing champion Kelly Slater has finally addressed claims he is a member of a secret Masonic order and that the logo of his popular surf brand Outerknown is modelled after the Masons’ compass and square.

Slater, who is fifty-one, ain’t one to back down from an online skirmish, instances too numbers to list or link but the most enduring, I think, is when he hit back at an historically inaccurate troll who claimed US military involvement always ended in failure. 

(Slater had jokingly suggested the US Navy sink 260 Chinese fishing boats in the Galapagos Islands.)

“You would be the type of fool to advocate for military violence and US involvement overseas,” wrote the troll. “The US needs to stop fucking policing the world. Getting the military involved has never helped anything it’s always the same people who end up hurting and having to pay for it.”

Slater’s riposte.

“Fuck off. It’s a joke, albeit a serious topic. I’m currently and always have been anti war. I’m also pro environment and wildlife. And I don’t really give a shit to talk to you or hear your opinion so fuck off.”

A new front has opened up, however, after Kimo Clark posted a debunking of conspiracy theories surrounding the devastating wildfires on Maui.

 

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“I don’t mean any disrespect to people believing these ideas,” writes Clark. “There are a ton of confused and hurt people affected by the fire. I am also a victim who lost my home, my neighborhood and the place I grew up in. 

“I think it’s healthy to question authority and processes. But do it for your own knowledge, not to jump on some band wagon that has no factual basis or because it’s what your friends believe or whatever latest social media trend is.”

The conspiracy busting Slater, who has previously taken on flat-earthers responded, “Humbling to hear your words about the situation, the people affected, and the outlandish ideas carelessly being spread. Hopefully this is heard far and wide to counter some of the nonsense. Thanks for bringing sensibilities and respect to the people doing their best to help during and after such a catastrophic event. Sounds like we need more like yourself.” 

As is the norm in online discourse in came the freaks, 

“Kelly is just a puppet to his masters the Masonic Order they have an agenda he’s just following his orders… #nothing his outterknown logo the Masonic Compass and Square all in plan sight for the blind sheep to see!” 

And, “His logo is a Masonic compass and square… you need to research whom controls your reality…be objective.” 

(More, too, including: “Just goes to show you can be awake to the vaccines and still fast asleep to the weather modifications and weaponising of weather throughout the world. You’ll be woken up very soon.”

Slater quickly squared off, “You taking about me and our company logo that is a literal ‘O’ and ‘K’ for Outerknown?”

And, 

“Nobody owns my mind. The Masonic thing is cute…I just wish I knew what benefits its affords me that I’m not getting.” 

Kelly Slater, of course, is no stranger to conspiracy theories himself and believes there’s a “lot of fishy things about” 9/11, that those pretty white plumes of smoke from jet airliners ain’t so pretty, mainstream media lies etc.