Stories About First Filming Trip:

The 5 Meter Swell / The Jet Ski Incident
– The whole trip we had fun waves but nothing huge or all time. As we were looking to get our tickets to head home, Raimana said there was a 5 meter swell coming.
– A lot of the big-wave surfing world was considering coming down, but the weather was a factor
– A lot of guys looked at the swell up to the last minute and decided not to go due to winds and a storm
– We woke up on the morning that it was supposed to be big and it still hadn’t hit. It was blown to shit out of the south (worst wind for teahupoo)
– Mid Day, Raimana took Jeff Cutler and Mike Prickett out to have a look. 3 guys on a ski.
– By now it was big ugly victory at sea Teahupoo
– Raimana sat in the line up, all 3 people on the ski, and waited for a bomb, punched the gas and rode all three people on the ski down the face of a bomb.- We thought, “what a great POV we could get if we put the camera on the front of the ski and looked back”!
– We went in, mounted the 150lb camera on the front of the Jet Ski and sent Raimana back out with Kelly on the back and a 150lb camera on the front.
– They rode out a massive teahupoo drainer, but then they got to the bottom of the wave, the ski cavitated or stalled or something, and the both of them came to almost a complete stop as the lip was bearing down on Kelly’s back!
– No joke, 150lb camera, a ski, Raimana and Kelly getting clipped by a Teahupoo lip? They could have died!
– The ski caught and sped up just as the lip detonated on the sled. 1 foot behind Kelly’s back.
– They made it and rode over dry reef into the lagoon.
– The kicker is, the camera has a mechanism that shuts itself off if it gets bounced around too much, and we missed the shot.
– Needless to say, we, including Kelly and RVB were pretty bummed
– But thankful they are both alive

Some Unreal Waves…Alone
– The same day of the Jet Ski Incident, the afternoon got even bigger and there were some crazy waves to be had.
– Many pros including Laird, GMac and others were in high alert to come down for the swell.
– Last minute, they ALL decided not to make the trip due to the winds and weather.
– Kelly was the only non-local big name pro on the island.
– The waves had come way up and we went out to film thinking maybe Kelly will get one or two
– Kelly ended up getting almost a dozen or so bombs
– The waves were so heavy that the ones that hit the reef right were not even phased by the 20mph onshore/sideshore winds
– Kelly was literally pinching himself as he was the only person out getting whipped into quadruple overhead Teahupoo.

The One That Got Away
– As Murphy’s law would have it, the wave of the day came through as Kelly was getting towed back out
– You had to be super choosey out there
– Kelly would take his time and pick off the ones that had the clean face
– He got a decent one and was buzzing back out when the wave of the day came through
– It was one of those ominous Teahupoo bombs where the horizon goes black
– The wave set up perfectly on the reef and the bottom just dropped out!
– It was the classic teahupoo warping barrel that you see in all the posters with everyone claiming it.
– All Kelly could do as he was towing back out was go over it and enjoy the view.
– Kelly put his head back let out a sigh and pointed into the pit as the wave just grinded and spun toward the shoulder and let out a cloud of spit!

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