“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." | Photo: @whoisjob

Carrot-topped king of Pipeline Jamie O’Brien nearly killed in freak novelty wave accident!

"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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Smith (top right) beacon of calm for a weary region. Photo: Hurricane Lee
Smith (top right) beacon of calm for a weary region. Photo: Hurricane Lee

New Englanders steadied by hurricane-seasoned California surf journalist as post-tropical cyclone Lee wreaks havoc on northeast!

Surfline code red.

I am currently sitting in the dining room of a classic New England bed and breakfast, the remains of a croque madam resting near an empty coffee mug on a fine china plate on an old farmhouse table, watching gusty winds lightly tickle the still-green leaves of maple trees outside the window.

Terror clawing at all those around.

Hurricane Lee, which has transitioned to Post-Tropical Cyclone Lee, is brushing past the coast, somewhere over the green mountains, leaving uncertainty and potential rain showers in its wake. The power is out in parts of Maine and Rhode Island was hammered with the exceedingly rare Surfline red designation.

I have only ever seen yellow (poor) and green (good).

Red, apparently, is “epic.”

Last evening, at party in an art gallery, a surfer showed me video clips of a lesser-known wave somewhere New England-ish. “Epic” seemed like an understatement. Perfect lines reeled both left and right, making barrel in either direction. I wish I could have been there in order to help those locals deal with fear and anxiety, as I am here to advise and assist after surviving Hurricane Hilary off the coast of California some three weeks ago, but alas, my advising and assistance was required elsewhere.

The sun is almost poking through clouds, now, sending shivers up spines though I swing into action, telling the guests its ok. I spotted enough local aged cheddar and maple syrup on a refurbished ice box near the front desk to last until at least 11 o’clock am. After that, I would be able to lead a recon mission to the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory where there may or may not be free samples.

The Ben and Jerry’s ice cream factory is whimsical and silly with an expressive color palate plus three very cute holsteins grazing in a patch of green grass near the road, or that’s what I saw yesterday afternoon while driving by on the way to a bespoke coffee roaster housed in a red barn.

Through my hurricane survival experience, I have come to understand that treating people like babies is essential to hurricane survival.

“I wish there was a vaccine for climate-induced stress,” someone at a neighboring farmhouse table mutters.

“There basically is,” I respond stoically. “Ben and Jerry’s.”

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G-Mac (top left) and Laird (bottom right) eye infamy.
G-Mac (top left) and Laird (bottom right) eye infamy.

Garrett McNamara, Laird Hamilton giddy as “extreme” star with “4 million kilometer high waves” discovered!

100+ foot waves suddenly irrelevant.

Post tropical cyclone Lee is, currently, slamming into America’s northeaster seaboard wreaking havoc, causing major panic. Power outages are being reported in Maine, Canadians are counting their bacon and New Hampshirites are tying themselves to granite hills, screaming “live free or die” into the howl.

Wild times.

A surf journalist, who made his way from storm-tested Southern California in order to advice and assist, is currently advising and assisting Vermontettes on how to deal with troublesome light breezes. An important role that will be greatly detailed soon.

Before that, though, it must be noted that Garrett McNamara, Laird Hamilton and other big waves studs are positively drooling over a new discovery of an “extreme” star with HUGE waves.

Dubbed MACHO 80.7443.1718, obvs, the star is some 160,000 light years away from the Earth, has 35 times the mass of the sun and once a month lots of gravitational tug, like the moon our our ocean, creates MASSIVE waves on its surface.

Up to 10 percent of the star’s entire diameter making them, roughly, 4 million kilometers high.

Astrophysicist Jim Fuller of Caltech, who was not part of the study, said it “shows how complicated and interesting the dynamics get when you have an extreme system like this.”

The waves can get big enough that they actually break and crash across the brighter star’s surface, the study suggests. When an ocean wave is far from shore, it’s a rolling, undulating wave. But as it comes closer to shore, it rises and collapses on itself. “Something kind of parallel is happening here,” Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says. The top of the wave steepens, “gets out of phase with the bottom, and it folds over on itself, and it crashes.”

The 4 million kilometer business puts to absolute shame the 100+ foot stuff normally being chased here on earth and you can be certain big wave surfers will be employing means available of reaching MACHO 80.7443.1718.

Kai Lenny’s jet ski etc.

HBO busily developing “4 Million Kilometer Wave.”

The small fishing village on the star readying itself for a bright spotlight.

Exciting days.

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Max's day to remember in Japan and, inset, BJ Penn after being sucked into the guts of a pool in Palm Springs. | Photo: @blessedmma

King of UFC octagon Max Holloway reprises Hawaiian surf skills at Japanese wave pool, “This will be the start of my professional surfing debut!”

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.”

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Impossible to unseen now! | Photo: @sensitiveseashellcollector

Kelly Slater addresses bombshell claims he is a “puppet to his masters at the Masonic Order” and Outerknown’s logo is “eerily linked” to Masonic compass and square!

“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.”

Logos side by side. Eerie!

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.

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