It's the closest thing to a rideable tsunami there is because there's no back to
the wave. It's just the whole ocean,
The most beautifully perfect wave I've ever seen.
What I want to sort of just induce people to do is to Google and search for some
of the Epic rides that you've taken that also alerted the world to the fact that
something crazy was going on. So, you know, with Laird Hamilton,
a very famous alert that went out to the planet,
it was this photograph of him in Tahiti, which must've
The millennium wave. You want us to talk about how that affected you? I mean,
Laird was my, it was a superhero to me, even up to that point,
and this was 2000 and layered was known,
is known as writing and kind of like pushing the limits of big wave riding where
people didn't think it could go. Part,
I think that's why I'm kind of inspired to follow in those footsteps.
Like [inaudible] it might be a little different approach. But for Laird,
when he rode that wave in 2000 he just kind of like blew the door open on what
was possible.
So what, what wave was it? Talk is this is Tahiti.
Yeah. So this is in Tahiti, French Polynesia, most beautiful day ever.
There's this way of called [inaudible]. People call it Chapo.
People call it chops and it's this wave that breaks in six feet of water on a
shallow reef comes from the depths of the ocean.
It's really deep on the other side.
And what makes this wave so unique is it can displace the entire ocean instead
of being, instead of standing up vertically, it just folds over.
So it's almost like it's the closest thing to a rideable tsunami there is
because there's no back to the wave. It's just the whole ocean.
The most beautifully perfect wave I've ever seen. And I'm,
there are two waves that have captivated me just visually,
and they're the exact opposite of each other. So this, how should I say?
Should I say Chapo?
Well, you can say it however you want. What does it mean? Can you translate?
It's got a good name. Oh yeah, this is, this is great.
So Taya hypo Showpo is translates to broken skulls and it's not because of the
wave, but that area is like culturally significant.
They call it the end of the road.
It's where the road ends and that's where that wave is right at the end.
But back in the day,
there used to be really big battles in Tahiti and people's skulls were put on
steaks and they would be stuck in the sand there.
And it just kind of fit perfect.
That one of the gnarliest waves that could stick you on a steak is just maybe
200, 300 yards off shore, fairly shallow reef, so shallow,
so sharp razors. Just imagine razorblades on the bottom, you touch it barely.
It's just you get ripped apart.
And a classic Tahitian tradition is you lime them after to kill any bacteria
because the research is so alive there that it's really easy to get staph
infection.
And so instead of using anything that's like by modern medicine standards or
less painful, they lime you and it is whore.
It's like putting acid in your wounds. It hurts so bad cause you know,
the acidic
the nature of limes are pretty acidic and so it just feels it's killing
everything in there. But it's also stinging, horribly bad.
And there's nothing worse when you get cut.
You try to hide it from like all your friends and the local Tahitians cause they
seem like lime and people, it's, it's hilarious.
Find so much pleasure in seeing you just like SCORM as they like lime your back
and it's good cause it kills yeah. Any staff that could possibly take you,
but at the very same time it's miserable.
You already go through a horrible experience and then you have to do it again.
Like this wave is not the tallest,
but it's one of the heaviest waves in the world just in terms of the mass of
water. Yeah.
I mean it kind of defies like belief when people first see it,
especially in person. It's not that the wave nationally,
it's not like the wave gets displaced as it comes in and hits the reef and
typically what happens is water is shot vertically and it creates a tall wave.
There's a back to the wave. It's usually half the size of the front of the wave,
but because there's all that mass pushing behind it, but at Chapo,
the way it hits the reef,
it just shoots the lip forward and the whole oceans behind it and it draws all
the water off the reef back into the ocean.
And so you're surfing at below sea level. If you're riding a 30 foot wave there,
you're 30 feet below sea level,
you're in like a pit and you can see the water going back up the reef in front
of you. It doesn't make sense. Yeah, no, it's just, it's a freak of nature.
Certain waves do that, but this one's the King of it. It's the best. It's,
I like to call it the most perfect clothes out on the planet because in all the
photos you see of it, it looks like this perfect wave and it is. Yeah.
For a little bit, but as you're writing,
those are right-hander that's coming at you.
So there's a wave that's equal in size that's going to close out on all that
missed the right at the end. So that's called spit.
You know when you see a breaking wave as it barrels,
it'll shoot like a cannon and all that water. It's the compression of water.
These, yeah, big waves.
Waves in general are like cannons or like guns.
So when you're riding in the tube you can feel air. It's a vortex.
It's a vortex. And so it's sucking air in like a jet engine like,
and then the wave, there's so much water moving, the air can't escape.
So it goes the least resistance,
which is back out the tube and it explodes.
And it shoots chunks of water that can knock you off your board.
Probably hundreds of pounds of like water that are like shooting you.
And it hurts really bad. Like it feels certain waves.
It feels so good, like getting just,
it's the only time it feels good to be spat on.
Well, you said this thing to me about barrels that I never thought of,
and maybe it's a commonplace in surfing, but I'd never heard it,
which is that a barrel is a unique experience.
Because of, you said something about the only time that
Well riding inside a tube, a barrel,
a wave, basically the hollow part of the wave as it pitches over,
it's unique because it's the only way we can breathe underwater without any
other breathing apparatus. And you feel like a fish for a second,
you know,
and there's something about waves that break and the negative ions they produce
that you know, make you feel so good.
So you can imagine being in this kind of capsule or this vortex,
you're so focused on making it, it's all that's on the front of your mind,
that there's a moment when nothing else exists and time slows down.
It's like you really are almost,
I don't know if accessing more parts of your brain or what it is,
but what feels like tense.
What is four seconds feels like a minute and you're just in there.
And I'm watching water droplets move by me at like matrix speed.
Everything looks like the matrix. And if you're really calm and,
and you're really comfortable, you can look,
you have time to like look around and absorb all this information.
And then all of a sudden as it's spits and you come out of the tube,
it's like life just starts going back to normal speed.
And you realize how life fast life moves.
Because in there it's like you have all the time in the world it feels like.
And it's, it's,
it's probably the pinnacle of what you could do surfing.