Josh and Alex and huge Hookipa

Oh, finally we move on.



Here's a brief list of the stuff I'd like to post:
A - a video shot from the helmet cam of two epic sessions (saturday 2 9 and sunday 2 10... jesus, it's already more than a week ago!). I have to edit it and that takes time...
B - photos of great Hookipa wavesailing conditions on wednesday 2 13
C - my report of the kenalu.com huge Standup board test on friday 2 15 at Launiupoko
D - the description of six great wave sailing days
E - the description of a mystical wave on thursday 2 14 at uppers
F - the review of a Kevin Pritchard MFC wave fin
G - the review of a Goya 90l wave board

Any preference?

I got so much stuff and so little time. And, as usual, I'm late with my monthly article for the italian magazine Windnews...
By the way, for whom it may concern: from now on, you can find my weekly reports in italian on their website. Here's last week's one.

Tonight, I choose to post some photos from thursday 2 14.
When I drove by Hookipa and couldn't believe that two sailors were out. It was huge and closed out like... 99% of the time. When I entered the beach park, I saw the sailor all the way on the outside in position to catch a wave of a huge set... and I made a mistake. I should have pulled into the lookout over Pavillion and taken a photo from there.

Instead, I thought that I would have been able to take other photos afterward from the usual cliff... yeah, right.
By the time I got to the parking, the sailor had caught the wave and was riding it. It was the biggest wave I've ever seen anybody riding at Hookipa. More than two masts high. Clearly, after the huge close out the sailor had no other chance than to sail back to shore.
That sailor was good old Alex Aguera. He had been out with Josh Angulo for a little while and I got there just in time... to see them both coming out of the water...

I was a little disappointed by that. By that was nothing compared to what Alex felt when he found out that nobody took a picture of that wave... very understandable!
"Oh, come on Alex! Stop whining, go out again and catch another one!" I teased him.
He gave me a look that made me say:"hey, hey... I'm just kidding, ok?"

Anyway, we were chatting on the beach when Josh grabbed his board and yelled:"Da hell, Alex. Let's go out again!"
I don't know what he saw. I don't know what he felt. But he was able to sneak through the channel in the only little lull I saw that day. A sixth sense, I'd say. Or a huge lucky strike.
He caught a few waves. My pictures suck for multiple reasons:
- I have a cheap camera
- there's 12x optical zoom and 2x digital zoom (this last deteriorates the quality)
- the light was horrible
- the waves were breaking so far out that it's pretty misty
- I'm not a professional photographer

BUT... da hell, they're still better than nothing. And they're free!
The first one was the one at the top of this post.
Here's an aerial.


Here's another semi-hidden bottom turn.


And yet another one.


Signature one handed top turn on a mellow section.


In the meantime, the poor Alex tried too to go out again, but he wasn't as lucky and couldn't make it. Here he is swimming back. Oh, forgot to mention. The wind was pretty freaking light.


Nonetheless, for a few eye witnesses he will remain the guy who rode one of the biggest waves ever at Hookipa. And I'm lucky enough to be one of those.
Good job, Alex and Josh.