Are you back in Half Moon Bay?

Yep, drove up yesterday after a couple of days in the Malibu. How are you?

Good times, bad times. The house next door burned in the Franklin Fire so I don’t have electricity, hot water or Wifi. After that drove north to watch the Niners lose to the Rams in the cold rain. I won $1800 on the Lottery last night so: Good times, bad times.

Happy New Year.

Okay I’m looking at a couple angles on Alo’s wave and man oh man: Just when you think you’ve seen it all. Did you guys realize what you'd done when you did it? Because on that big Condition Black day at Outside Log Cabins, Ken Bradshaw got towed into a history wave by Dan Moore, but he didn’t realize what he had done until he saw photos and video.  He didn't know what was behind him. He was looking in front of him.
When that wave was coming at us, it was a solid wall from Moss Beach to the Ritz Carlton. Really.

When that wave was coming at us, it was a solid wall from Moss Beach to the Ritz Carlton.

Ov vey. That’s a bold statement.

Well Alo was talking about when he caught the wave and was dropping in, he felt like was going backwards.  

Were there a lot like that that day? Or was that one special.

Special? It was clearly, yeah, it was clearly the biggest wave of the day. But there were a lot of tall waves that also went square. There were a lot of waves that were loading the bowl. But the volume of water that was moving and the velocity these waves were moving. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. But obviously I haven't been around for that long.

Well Peter Mel has been around that long, and he said he'd never seen or felt anything like it. Was Grant Washburn there that day
No, he wasn't. He was in Florida.

Let's start from when I saw you briefly at Zinque on New Year's Eve. You were in a rush. The beard is cool. Is that a Special Forces beard or a tribute to Brian Wilson – ace relief pitcher for the World Champion San Francisco Baseball Giants?

You want to know the real story behind this beard?

The world wants to know.

I was at wedding in June and one of our best friends, Justin Falls, was like, dude… I hadn’t shaved in two or three days…

Hey, you're at a wedding. A groomsman? Why groom?

…so I had a little bit of stubble on my face. Justin Falls is like: “Dude, you need to grow a beard. I can tell that you can grow a real beard. Guys go to Turkey to get something like that.” We're trying to talk, and he's like: “That's a Christmas beard. Grow it until Christmas.” So, right. Here I am.

When  I worked at SURFER Magazine in the 1990s I tried to grow a beard. My dad had a nice beard. I went to Hawaii and Brock Little said: “Oh I thought you were Ken Bradshaw until I saw your arms.”

Ha!

So you were in Malibu for New Years? Partying? Training? Looking for Hollywood deals? The Luca and Alo Show?

No, I was in Malibu for three days to see my girlfriend. I surfed up north for a few weeks and there was a little window of down time. She actually had a work event that night, so I just came down to visit with her for a couple days.

As you went rushing past I asked you about the Beast Mode interview we did last year - www.benmarcusrules.com/lucapadua -about you going left at Mavericks. That interview all of a sudden blew up on my website and got a couple hundred hits. I wondered why? What ignited the interest?

Well a friend of mine wished me a happy birthday on his social media. I guess people Googled my name and your interview is the first thing to come up.

Well this interview will be Beast Mode 2. What is your New Year’s Resolution by the way?

??????

When I’m hustling people to let me help them write a book, I always say: “Anybody who played a role in history has a debt to history, to detail that role.” It’s a hustle, but I also mean it. And it appears you two did make history. 

I appreciate that, and I completely agree. I’ve been trying to write more and the paper and get my thoughts out. After big swells every single one of us needs to write things down. We always say “I'll never forget that moment,” and then two weeks later, it just becomes a blur, and you don't remember any of the details. So get them out, get them on paper now and read about it later. That day was an interesting experience, tosay the least.

It appears you and Alo Slebir made history on December 23, 2024, so in the words of MC Hammer: let’s break it down.

We’d had some good days leading up to that and knew something big was coming. But that morning we delayed a little bit. We shuffled our feet but when it was time to go we suited up in my house. I live maybe 30 seconds from the launch ramp at Princeton Harbor. Depends on traffic and the light but 30 seconds usually.

On your Instagram, you're hugging someone in a doorway. Is that your mom?

That's my mother.

Does she worry you live only 30 seconds away from the gateway to heaps of trouble?

It’d be funny for you to chat with her but let's just say: She knows we take it seriously, so she doesn’t have much to worry about. She's happy for us to have the opportunity to be doing what

Do your parents ever go watch from the cliffs or in the channel?

Mom came out. We got her out on the jet ski once. It was years ago. I was 15, so it was eight years ago if my math is right.  We haven't really made it again.

Did it spook her?
No, she would love to come back out there.

You shoulda bought her a ski for Christmas. Come on! Or take your share of that XXL Biggest Wave Money and hook her up!

????

It’s the Greatest Show on Earth, really.  

My dad was never really interested, until this year. On my way out the door, my dad – he’s not a surfer but he knew it was a significant day – I was about to close the door and he looked at me and said, “Hey, make it count.” And that was seared on the frontal lobe of my brain the entire day: “Make it count.”

And we did. That whole day, from like 10 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, we did not stop for more than two minutes.

The Beastie Boys: “And you don’t stop!” Just going round and round, taking turns on the rope and driving. Didn’t head in for lunch? Just stayed out there to get some! And get some more!

We came in on fumes, physically and mechanically. There was essentially no gas in the ski.

Oh you don’t want to run out of gas out there. You’d be like Ross Clarke-Jones and Tony Ray on the Condition Black day at Log Cabins: floating downcurrent from history on a dead ski.

I know, I know where the threshold is, yeah,

Okay I made a bunch of snips of that wave from different news sources. And I mean, geez: have you ever seen a wave at Mavericks like that?

I don't think so.

MONTAGE OF MAVERICKS MEDIA HYPE

It looks like Mullachmore in reverse. I’ve thought that at biggest size, Mullachmore is the heaviest wave in the world: It’s long like Cloudbreak,throws like Teahupoo and is bigger and colder than Mavericks. For some reason I think those North Atlantic swells have more power because Mullachmore is at 54 degrees north and Mavericks is around 34 degrees north so Mullaghmore is closer to the source. I’ll run that by Mark Sponsler.

 Once I get over there, I’ll let you know.

QUIEN ES MAS MACHO? MULLACHMORE O MAVERICKS?

We saw Mullachmore around 1993 on a trip with Brock and Cody Graham, Love Hodell, Strider. It wasn’t breaking, but it had the look.

 I was talking to people about the size of Alo’s wave and the World Record possibility. When you put Mavericks against Nazare or Mullaghmore it’s as simple as this: Which one would you rather not take on the teeth?

THUS SPAKE SPONSLER

The 411 on the weather systems that made history by Mark Sponsler, And whether North Atlantic storms at Mullaghmore have more power and size and velocity than North Pacific storms at Mavericks.

Regarding your question Mullaghmore and Mavericks:

In the North Pacific storms tend to track east somewhere between 45N to 50N.  Mavericks is at 37.5N.  A lot of how much swell results is a function of how close the storm comes to your break and how high the seas were more than the absolute position of the storm. 

In this case, this storm was running east on  the 39N latitude and moved within 1300 nautical miles of Mavs with seas up to 57 feet.  That's insanely high seas for a North Pacific storm (see attached image).

For the North Atlantic, for whatever reason, all the major storms there tend to be further north, like up at 55N and between Greenland and Ireland. And it's not as unusual to see storms with seas in the 50 feet range.  

I suspect a lot of it has to do with the storm’s fuel source.  In the Atlantic, It's the Gulf stream. Piles of semi-tropical warm water flowing up the US East Coast then turning northeast off Canada with a raging jetstream flowing over top of it setting up the perfect conditions to support rotation in the atmosphere (i.e. low pressure development).

For the North Pacific there is some warming coming from the Kuroshio current running northeast along Japan and the Kuril Islands. But it seems most energy comes from the interaction of the jetstream pushing off Japan and more diffuse and generic tropical energy drifting north over the dateline and Hawaii, and much less focused that the Atlantic situation. 

So to your point, I think Ireland does get a lot of giant surf due to it being closer to the swell source, and that storms tend to be a bit stronger in the North Atlantic. But, a swell does need space/distance to unwrap: That is, to allow raw swell and all the 5, 6-10 second period junk in a raw sea state to die off before the groomed 20-25 second period elements become exposed.

That's a more rare case for Ireland, and more typical of say Peahi and Mavericks. It's a double-edged sword:  Distance grooms a swell, But also allows for some decay too. 

I guess one man poison is another's nectar.  

One last point, in the swell that Alo and Luca were riding, in the morning there was energy out to 40 secs (0.85 ft @ 40 secs and 1.78 ft @ 36.36 secs). 

Very rare indeed. It takes 70 knot winds over a long area and 57 foot seas to generate periods that long.

Peak reading I saw (pure swell - discounting all the short period junk) was 24.4 ft @ 19.5 secs which corresponds to a wave of 46.5 ft , or at Mavs double that, or 95 ft.  And there was a bunch of other readings that would have made 80 foot waves there.    

In layman’s terms - whether North Atlantic or North Pacific - this is what Mark Sponsler is saying:

Yeah, what is the record right now?

I don't know. I think they say, like 86 feet. But we just were laughing, because it's putting a two-dimensional measurement on a three-dimensional force. You’re not measuring velocity, which is hard, but there might be a way to measure other things beyond height. What's more significant: height or length times width times tight?

I was talking to ???? and he said: “The biggest wave that you're gonna ride is not going to be the tallest, right?” There are other factors.

I’ve looked at photos of giant Mullaghmore and thought: “What would happen if you got caught inside that thing?” But the same goes for those waves at Mavericks that day. Is that survivable? Did anyone get caught by the biggest waves that day?

I was the first one to pack a barrel that day.

 I saw Peter’s wave. In slow motion he got around that falling lip and pulled into a cavernous closeout. Those 50-somethings are pushing the limits these days.

We missed it. He had another one where he came around and could have pulled into it but there was a south wind grain coming up the face. You don’t really see it in the photos or videos, but it was there and we had to deal with it along with everything else.

PETER PULLS INSI!

 So my first wipe out, I was bottom turning on a double up, hit one of the ribs, and my fins cavitated and came out. It was like pulling the e brake. I did a faceplant in the bottom of the trough, got pounded, took the next few waves on the head and got obliterated.

Okay I just looked at that on Instagram - - You were flying and hit some whoop de dos but I don’t think that one was makeable. From the drone angle you were just a fart in a windstorm. Six skis came to get you. Again, looked like a Special Forces op: “Leave no man behind!”
Alo got me before I washed through the rocks, but my board went through. 

Okay, naive question. You don’t wear leashes out there?

No leashes. Want to be far away from boards and fins. So we went searching for my board and just got it then had to pass through Black Hand and Mushroom Rock and I mean, it was 20 feet in there. So we're working our way, trying to get back out and Pete and Augie (Ryan Augenstein) came flying in. Pete had just packed his barrel, he got pounded, and his board went through. But we all recovered and got back out and it was non stop.

Okay on another one you did some S Turns like you were surfing First Peak and then pulled into a big barrel. More drones than seagulls hovering, and a lot of skis in the channel.

Maybe your beard is a Special Forces beard because giant Mavericks is kind of a Special Forces op, no? You really have to know what you’re doing out there or you’re gonna be in deep kimchi.

Definitely. I mean, just getting back out through Black Hand Reef is an operation.

That's one thing I was gonna ask: How do you navigate out on a giant day. So let’s run through it. You said you got a late start. What time did you leave the dock?

Probably around 8:00 or 8:30 .All right, so our timestamp… but it was a little bit later in the morning. We dragged our feet, drank some coffee, and actually we did a 15-minute breath work protocol, respiratory warm up, and then we went outside and we tossed the football for 15 minutes, and that was our warm up.

I’ve gone out of Princeton Harbor on boats and I know you have to swing way down to the southeast to get around the reef. Did you do that because it was so big?

No, we went out through Black Hand Reef. You just gotta know how to navigate and time it. You could tell it was big.

What are your indicators for what’s going on off Pillar Point? Sight? Smell? Sound?

The first thing that happened when I woke up, or right before we were heading out, after the “Make it count,” I closed the door and I took a breath, and it smelled big.

Yep, before Surfline and all that we went by sound and smell. We knew how to gauge size by the sound, and also how much salt was in the air. It smelled big. Good one. That could be the title of this thing.

How many waves did you guys catch before the big one?

Alo’s wave count was probably around 15. It was pumping, just non-stop all day. We had a routine. I was screaming at him all day: Kick out of a wave, grab the rope and I’d yell: “Up top the mountain!”

Top o’ the world, ma!

 Because every time you kicked out there’d be another, and another and another. All day long. So much energy.

Had you ever seen it like that energetic, that consistent?

No I hadn’t and Pete Mel will speak for himself, but later in the parking lot he said some very kind things about Alo and my performance. And there were days after where he was high-fiving us, either physically or with his words – reminding us that day was historic. He knew it, and he’s been there forever.

 We understood how few opportunities we’re going to get it like that. How few opportunities we're going to get at that and to get it right? To get it in our youthful prime is a special opportunity.

Seize the day.

I have a very vivid memory of a conversation before I packed that first barrel. Al and I were waiting out the back, and I told him: “Who knows when we're ever going to get to see it again like this in our lifetime? I want to know what one of those looks like from the inside out. I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait 20-30, years and be like, ‘Oh, I wonder what that would have been like.’ I just want to know right now.”

You said the one you picked was walled up from Moss Beach to the Ritz Carlton. That’s worth repeating.

It was a wall as far as I could see in either direction.

You ever seen that before?

No, I was seeing things in the ocean…. There were these giant waves coming in at one point… after a pickup we waited like five seconds to go back out instead of ripping straight back out and we saw two break through and we were like, “Holy shit!”

That's the thing is, like, it's easier to stomach when you're not looking at what's going on and what you're doing. I've heard that from a few people.

Mark Sponsler said this was historic. I mean, that swell sawed off a hundred feet of the Santa Cruz Pier - not a storm, just a swell. There was water draining off the end of the pier like it was dry reef. Did you see the swell damage in the upper harbor at Santa Cruz? Worse than the tsunami. That swell wrecked boats in Peru. 

Zach Wormhoudt wondered about the timing of Alo’s wave and when the pier collapsed and the Harbor got flooded. Maybe a freak set did all that?

?????

How many Mavericks days did you have before December 23?

This year? That's a good question.

Do they still do notches?

???? I haven't made clear counts but we've had some volume this year… we had probably 10 sessions under our belt since the start of the season.

Any new routine, any new equipment?

Yeah, we're working with Stretch, and he's building us some rocket ships.

Boards matter. Speed matters.

Ours are Stretch’s bread and butter tow boards, which have worked incredibly well for 25 years. And we're making a couple different iterations of it. But he's the man. Stretch rocks, and you know, he's right here on the North Coast. We can articulate what we need surfboards to do, and he can make them do exactly what we need.

We designed a new paddle board with him called the Big Iron, and we're designing new iterations. I guess we can say it's available now

What are the dimensions of your tow boards? Or is that classified?

They're 5’ 10”, 16 and a quarter wide and one and a quarter thick.

Are they weighted, like what Laird and those guys used to do, they put lead weights in them?
Stretch uses high density foam, and then he puts some lead weights in a very specific spot so they are weighted. There is an option to add another ???? pounds, but I didn't want to that day. It was just a balance sheet. It was a matter of getting the board balanced the way I wanted it to. And so I chose not to add extra weight. 

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Looked like the wind was a problem that day, but I guess you can’t expect 60-foot Mavericks to be dead glass.

It had a southwest lump on it, and then it would gust southeast. So there's some moments where it looks kind of offshore, and then it would swing and so it was kind of like a variable south pattern. The day before -  well, the night before -  it blew a little bit of south wind, or some storm wind, and so it creates that ridge all the way up the face. I saw that it didn't look that bumpy in the photos, but those photos and a lot of videos, very little justice. 

There's a couple drone clips that have just come out that actually show what was going on. And we had a buddy, Mike, Joshua, who's from El Granada. He was watching that day and at the very end of the day he wanted to have a try and we said, “Yeah, no problem.” ,

He came out the back, and he's like, “Holy shit.” It got super rough. He asked: “Was it like this all day?”

And I said: “This is clean compared to earlier.”

It looks manageable from the channel, and then when you get onto the other side and you're looking in at your runway, you see how rough it is. 

I mean, imagine trying to take off a fighter jet in the whoop dee dos.

Fun, fun, fun. So, uh, inflatable vest.

The Patagonia.

Wetsuit? It’s like the red carpet at the Oscars: Who are you wearing?!?!??

There's a company called bewit, and they build custom wetsuits out of suiting world. They designed an impact suit with them. So I was wearing a five mil with Mads built into it.

Did it help?

I didn't even think about being cold, and was buoyant when I needed to be

Oh right, what ski do you use? Is it modified at all?

Yamaha FXHO with around 250 HP. Pontoon for stability, dual prop for traction in the turbulence.

Driving is fun too?

I like to tow him, I like to whip him in, and then I ride up and lateral on the ridge line of the wave so I can look back and I can see what he's doing.

That’s a little perilous, no?

Yeah, you just have to know where to drive. It's precision but I was doing that all day. I like to watch him, and then if he goes down, or he pulls in, or something happens, I can come and scoop him up once he comes up.

38:20

Were rescues sketchy, because it was so giant and consistent?

There were a couple times that I pulled in or went down and took two or three waves before I got picked up.

When did you get first alerted that this was coming?

There was a 10 day window on the long range. Forecast looked giant and giant meeting. There was a big day on the very back end, the far end like that, like 10 days, 12 days out, whatever that is. And there was a lot of stuff in that four-to-eight day window.

 It all looked that there would be some volume and a lot of action, but it was going up and down, extremely volatile. And so saw that giant swell out the back. And I just managed, you know, manage my expectations, because, like, this thing is going to jump up and down 100 times before it gets here, and I don't want to get my hopes up about the biggest swell of all time. So I just kept a little bit of, you know, a little eye on it. And a lot of the stuff in that, you know, four to eight day window was still bouncing up and down. It was going to be 20 feet, and it was going to be five feet, and then it was going to be 35 feet, and then it was going to be 17 feet, and it was going up. 
But that giant day out the back was just holding steady. That could be interesting, and it kept marching in, and I just don't like happens last week. I didn’t want to be in a situation where I'm just setting myself up to be disappointed. So I'm ready for that. If it comes and I will be sited ready, everyone willing to get accurate, if the date I'm not gonna count on it,

Well, the historic swells rarely pan out. But this one did.

Then the models came in and it was like, getting closer into the window where the storm was actually gonna form. It was like, alright, well, we might, we might be all systems go here. And then, sure enough, those first model readings, Sponsler’s updating, and you're watching  the models. And then he's putting out his live updates via his channels. And he's like, this is it. And we were pretty confident about his call.

He knows this stuff. So you said it smelled big. But what are your indicators for what is coming to Mavericks. Did you see anything the day before that suggested what was coming?

 We had a really fun session the day before. Too funny. There were a handful of days before and after that have just gotten a little bit shadowed by the big day. Like I got a wave the day before, by any other standard, in any other season, would have been a very large wave. Was different compared to that following day.

 But I felt so even keeled full time while it was on the forecast. Like a lot of times, you can get heady and performance angst and excited and nervous and feel the feelings that your body needs to go through to gear up for battle and survival. 

But I felt so even-keeled the entire time. That night I went to bed, and didn't even think about it. Fell asleep, slept like a baby. We had a great day the day before, and what that turned into… even keeled on a giant day. I never had more fun in the water during a surf session and I've never felt more calm.

Well you were probably adrenalized from the day before, which is why you slept well and why you were calm. As Brock Little famously said: “Adrenaline is a funny drug.”

Well, on that big day, I've never felt more more calm and never had more fun. It was just a fascinating experience, because I've had 10 to 15 football days where I'm more nervous than I was on that big day.

On instagram there were a lot of skis in the channel and a lot of drones in the air. How many tow teams were there that day? 

There weren’t lot of people there riding waves. Probably five teams.

Peter Mel and Ryan Augustine, you guys…

 John Mel and JoJo Roper. Lucas Chumbo and Lucas Fink were out there for a while. A couple other guys. But it was not crowded or a problem. It was pumping.

Who went first?

Alo went first. Usually I go first but we started settling it with a good American game of rock paper scissors. I went first the day before, and I just wanted to feel it, and I can feel it in a different way when I'm driving. 

Right off the bat, he got a really big wave, that turned out to be slightly insignificant compared to the giant one that he rode, but still a big wave. A monster. It was right when we got out there, big old wall, and it set the pace for us. 

There was probably four teams out there, and we drove straight out to the top of the pack. All those waves came in. I said, “We're going. Turn around.” From then on, it was game on, yeah.

Does tide matter when it's that big?

I'd say no. There's so much water moving out there, a three foot tide swing that day was insignificant.

Was it shifting around a lot, or was every wave bombing in the same place and it was easy pickings? So easy, a Caveman could do it!

Definitely had to pick the right one. Part of it is doing your best to take the wave with the clean runway. Every wave is bumpy. You're trying to pick the cleanest of the bumpy ones.

Are the second and third and fourth waves cleaner?

They can be but you're also trying not to get the one that has a bunch of giant, turbulent white water on it. There's a hunting aspect to it. And yes it was shifting around. At one point, we were sitting, who knows how far out to sea: fourth reef Mavericks. There were different currents moving around. At one point, there was a football-field-wide river rip current going through the lineup.

Fun! Fourth Reef. Did you just invent that, or has that been seen before?

????

We were getting moved around, and I didn't like where we were. Alo was on the rope, and I just had a feeling: “Let's just get up. Get up and move.” We got up and went over this little bump, and there was a white water from the horizon. Who knows how big? 60 foot white water, like 80 foot white water, probably 80 foot white water, rolling from the outside. 

It was a left rolling into us, and we were sitting at like four, three fabrics, holy, passes off like, where are we? What are we doing? What is this wave? So it was, there was John. There's also these giant waves that come in, and you'd have to, you'd have to read them and know which ones were going to hit the reefer, because these giant waves would stand up and they would just crumble and be soft and miss the ball. And then you have these giant waves, though, square, did you

Did you go left at all that day?

Nope.

We discussed the sanity of going left at Mavericks in Beast Mode One. We also discussed your friend and training partner Christian McCaffrey. I’m wearing a #23 t-shirt right now as a matter of fact. How is he doing?

 Solid. The season’s wrapping up. He’s got the whole off-season and he’s looking forward to coming back full force. 

That guy just wants to play. Born to Run should be his theme song.

The guy loves football.

That's what Gabby Reece-Hamilton said: He just loves football.

Did you train with him all summer in North Carolina?

We were in North Carolina a lot but we bounced back and forth between there and California.

Did you swim in croc-infested waters to improve your water training? I think Laird does that.

????

Have you improved your fitness from his training routine?

Well it’s not just hard, he’s very precise. So I've learned a lot about precision: part of that position precision is knowing when to put your foot on the gas and when to put your foot on the brake. When not to train and when to just lean into your sport, and that's helped me so much this season. 

I love training, like it's very fun for me and so training has become like a sport for me in and of itself. I wanted to get good training but that took away a little bit from surfing. So there was also an aspect in the summer where we were training hard, but we were training precise. And obviously there's like, a different demand on me for my sport, but also a lot of crossover in the mindset and the performance  and skills. 

A big theme we talked about this this year was: Keep it simple and have fun. Do your sport, play ball, surf waves but don't make it harder than it needs to be.

I heard someone tried to paddle Mavericks that day? How did that go?

?????

Astronauts used to eat steak and eggs before launch. What do you eat and drink before a big day at Mavs? Or do you eat anything at all?
Yeah, usually, it's just coffee. I'm working on a new morning elixir concoction right now working with a buddy who's a nutritionist, God is helping me with, just to get something in the tank before the day starts.

You burn a lot of energy, being cold.

We drank coffee in the morning and we ran it hot all day. Normally, we're pretty good about getting some fluids in throughout the day, drinking electrolytes, maybe crushing a protein shake, just easy to digest. Eating a bar here and there on the big day. 

But I swear there was not time to take a sip of water, because there were sets coming. It just pumped all day long.

At the very end of the day, we knew we had been running it hot, and we knew we weren't getting ahead of that fuel demand that your body has. We knew the crash was going to happen at some point. And sure enough at probably 4:40 in the evening Alo was doing a bottom turn and he had a full hamstring lockup. He was able to kick out but he was in full lock up for a whole minute. That was that.

Did you come in because you were beat or had Christmas shopping to do or had to check messages?

We stayed out, watched the sunset and then rolled in.

How do you come down from a day like that? 

That's the hard part. I actually didn't, and it was crazy. My girlfriend, drove up here. And I came in from the craziest day and my girlfriend and my mom are in the kitchen. So that was nice, but I didn’t sleep for three days.

Adrenaline hangover? I’ve interviewed shark attack victims and others who have had intense experiences, and I say the adrenaline is almost like an acid that etches a permanent memory in your brain, and it doesn’t fade.

Yep, that’s it. Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, replaying it all. Oh and we all got sick from that day, by the way. There was some kind of red tide out there or something, and we all got sick.

gear switching, coming down off something, and being able to downshift. I have some tools and protocols for that, and it didn't matter what I did. What

What did you get for Christmas?

A beautiful morning with my grandparents and my folks and my family. My dad got my girlfriend and I a beautiful grill. It's called a bowl. It's gonna be great. 

Christmas was funny because jokingly in the beginning of December…  my birthday was on the 17th, so my mom last minute, asked me: “What do you want for your birthday and Christmas.”

I said: “I want a 60-foot wave.” I was kind of joking but then, sure enough, well that’s good.