Watch: Hawaii's Giant Black Friday Swell With Mark Healey
Rule number one: never underestimate just how crazy Mark Healey is. When the surf in Hawaii went giant over the Thanksgiving holiday, of course he was on it. And while he may appear calculating and methodical in his preparation, history has proven he loves a good laugh in the face of danger.
Healey's been catapulted from a boat at Maverick's, stuck on the ledge of the biggest of days at Cloudbreak and been known to fend off tiger sharks while diving for dinner. He started surfing the North Shore's big-wave spots before he finished sixth grade. He lives for days like the Black Friday swell that just hammered the islands.
"Well, that was fun," surmises Healey during his lunch break. "Caught a few good waves. Got caught inside. Broke a leash. But made all my waves."
The biggest swell to hit Hawaii since last January, hoping to take advantage of the size, Healey and company headed back out to an outer reef in the afternoon, but by then the winds had turned onshore and the conditions deteriorated to the point of it being too dangerous to continue surfing.
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"It was a much bigger swell than anticipated," described Healey. "It probably peaked in the pre-dawn hours this morning. There's tons of damage on the roads. There's sand in the roads, a lot of people's houses got washed through on the North Shore here, which is a bummer for them. We got way more solid surf than was expected."
The swell also brought life to Pe'ahi over on Maui with some seriously giant waves being ridden. More on that to come shortly.
The energy that just hit Hawaii will now continue to move across the Pacific and in a day or two start showing up on the West Coast, hopefully turning on big-wave spots like Maverick's in California and Todos Santos in Mexico.
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With more than 25 years of writing about surfing, the ocean and action sports, Jake Howard continues to share stories, profiles and issues that shape the surfing world. One of the premier subject-matter experts in the field today, he's savvy in the ways of print, digital and social media, his breadth of work is expansive. Getting his start writing Surfline surf reports and recording the phone reports for 976-SURF in the late '90s, Jake served as the managing editor for Surfer Magazine in the early 2000s before moving on to launch RedBullSurfing.com and cover surfing for ESPN and the X Games. Over the years, Jake has also enjoyed time behind the edit desk at The Surfer's Journal, as well as the World Surf League, where he worked as the Senior Editor for a number of years. Beyond producing editorial content, Jake has served as a digital marketer and copywriter for iconic surf brands such as Quiksilver, Roxy and Rip Curl. Writing thousands of pages of copy for Surfline, he has deep SEO experience as well. The surf columnist for the San Clemente Times, Jake continues to dedicate himself to the culture and history of the sport through his involvement with the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center in San Clemente.