The Jaws × Mavs Circuit

Maui

I was home in LA when I saw three big swells lining up for Hawaii, one after the other. I’m always watching the charts, but it’s rare to see something like that. The forecast kept improving as the swells got closer, with five days straight of maxing surf at Jaws and a new swell hitting every other day. I’ll usually wait until the last minute to book a flight, but this time I was 100 percent sure I was going because there were so many good days in a row. I flew straight to Maui. 

The first four days I was there were really good for paddle-in surfing—big and clean. Every morning, I’d be up at five-thirty to get in the lineup for sunrise, shoot all day from a jet ski, and get back to shore at dusk to load and gas the ski, have dinner, and download my photos. Then I’d do it all over again. I was exhausted after a few days, and not getting much sleep, but when we heard the Eddie was due to run, I knew we were going to see a really special day at Jaws—even bigger than the conditions were expected to be at Waimea.

The day of the Eddie was my fifth day in a row at Jaws. There were fewer people in the water because a lot of surfers were over on Oahu for the contest. The early morning was big but not giant, and still good for paddling. Then the swell started filling in fast, and by noon there were only five surfers in the water. They were exhausted after four days but still really pushing their limits, because there are so few opportunities to surf conditions like that. Every time someone would have a crazy wipeout, you wouldn’t see them get back out in the lineup for a while, if they came back out at all. It’s tough to recover from those beatings. 

By the early afternoon, the swell had gotten too big and fast, and they called off the paddle session to start towing. I remember seeing one tow-in wave that afternoon where Luke Walsh was trying to drop down the face, but the wave was moving so fast that it looked like he was going backward until it blew right past him. That’s how powerful the conditions were.

I’ve been shooting Jaws since 2003, and I’ve seen it that big before. I was there when the Eddie ran in 2016 and the conditions were similar. But the consistency and the number of waves in a set were special this day. On some long-period swells at Jaws, sometimes you have to wait 45 minutes to see a really big set, and people are usually vying for position to catch the biggest wave. But by late afternoon, this swell was nonstop—six or seven waves in a set, and no waiting between sets, and so many sets going unridden.

Benjamin Sanchis probably caught the biggest wave that day—definitely one of the biggest waves I’ve ever seen ridden at Jaws—but he didn’t have enough speed, and the wave swallowed him after he made his bottom turn.

I think the most perfect wave I saw that afternoon was ridden by Kona Oliveira. I was sitting on the jet ski and saw a big set approaching from the west. The wall stretched across the entire lineup and threw a crazy barrel. It wasn’t one of the tallest waves that day, but it was nice and square. 

Half Moon Bay

Before going to Jaws, I didn’t expect to chase this swell to Maverick’s, because the weather wasn’t looking good there. But I loaded my van and jet ski with everything I needed at home in LA, just in case. 

Then, on the day of the Eddie, I saw there was a chance the conditions at Maverick’s could be really special the next day, and I didn’t want to miss it. I started calling friends in Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay to see if anyone had a ski I could jump on, but they were all booked because a bunch of surfers were already going. So I found a friend in LA who was willing to drive my van and jet ski to pick me up at the airport in San Francisco.

I got back from shooting Jaws all day around sundown. As soon as we got the jet skis out of the water, I packed my stuff and booked a last-minute ticket on the final flight out of Maui that night, at eleven o’clock. I got three hours of sleep on the plane and landed around six in the morning. My friend was waiting for me, and we drove straight down to Maverick’s. 

When we got there, it was rainy and foggy. You couldn’t see the lineup from land. When fog moves in like that, it’s scary. Without visibility or lineup markers, it can be hard to stay in a safe position and know whether you’re in the channel. I’ve been stuck out there before in thick fog and had to wait until it cleared to get back to shore.

I was a little worried about getting in the same situation, but thankfully it was just clear enough to navigate. I got into the lineup by about nine-thirty. Right away, I saw a good set, but overall the morning was a little slow. There were a couple guys trying to paddle early on, though the wind was putting big bumps on the face that made it sketchy.

It started getting really big around noon. Peter Mel was towing with his son, John. I could tell by the lines Peter was taking on his waves that he was trying to get barreled. He would stall just before the main bowl and wait for the wave to throw, so I kept looking for him on those waves. Finally, a set came to Peter at the perfect angle, and I got a shot looking down into the barrel that was probably my favorite from the week, because it’s such a hard perspective to capture at Maverick’s.

By two o’clock, a bunch of insane waves were coming through. I’ve been to Maverick’s on some big days—including “100-Foot Wednesday,” on November 21, 2001—but I’ve never seen waves breaking so far out on the reef. Some of the sets were washing through the bowl. 

I remember one set that seemed like it was going to close out the channel, and all the skis and the one small boat out there had to drive full speed out of its way. The second wave in the set was even bigger than the first. I started to worry that if there was a bigger wave behind, everyone would get cleaned up.

Late in the day, Alo Slebir got one wave that the media has been calling a potential 100-footer. From where I was sitting, it was almost hard to tell how big it was, because the wave started breaking so far outside. I’m sure that if the conditions had been clearer, and someone had captured it from the cliffs, it would have looked even more impressive than it did from the channel. 

The whole business of measuring waves has gotten very complicated. I don’t really care about world records, but I do know that day saw some of the biggest buoy readings ever for California. So that swell, and that wave in particular, are definitely among the biggest ever documented at Maverick’s. 

What made that week really special to me was just how many days in a row we had surf that size. I’ve been chasing swells to Jaws and Maverick’s for more than 20 years. I don’t think I’ll ever see something like that again. Some seasons, you don’t even see one day as big as any in that run of swell. It’s lucky just to get three days in a row like that, but five days straight at Jaws and then one at Maverick’s was an absolute marathon. By the end, I had more than 38,000 photos. 

[Feature image: Chris Davis]