After watching Kai Lenny kiting Hookipa yesterday afternoon, I decided to title this post "Kai Lenny is amazing".
But then I went sailing and the feeling of the sessions took over. I still think Kai is amazing though,
and I'm going to start this post with him.
Some time ago I posted his video "four in one" and one reader commented that the video was lame.
In my opinion, Kai is the best ocean athlete in the world (at age 19!!!!) and NOTHING about what he does and says is lame for me.
Assuming that the action is not the lame part, since it's absolutely mind blowing, I'm assuming that the reader thought that lame was what he says. Here's what he says at the end:
I'm not a surfer.
I'm not a windsurfer.
I'm not a paddler.
I'm not a kiter.
I am an ocean athlete adapting to the elements.
Today is the last day of our hawaiian summer. This south swell is one of
the largest in the last 15 years... and I was part of it. How lucky am I?
Our world measures us in rankings and world titles. There’s so much more
out there than that!
Somebody might have thought about those words for him, nonetheless not a single one of them is false.
I tell you more. I'm not a kiter (even though I wish I had the time to learn... my fourth discipline is work instead... LOL!), but other than that I could second each single word he said.
In my car I ALWAYS have:
- a windsurf board (and three sails)
- a surfboard (often two)
And when I think there might be the right conditions, I also load my SUP on the roof rack.
I am an ocean athlete too adapting to the elements. The things I do are not even remotely comparable to the ones Kai does, but I can identify myself in what he says. He's a total inspiration to me.
Allright, said this, here's a few pics.
When I got to Hookipa, Kai was the only one out. Photographers, videographers. He makes a living out of what he does in the water and that's part of his job. Call that lame!
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| four times overhead |
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| love the shadow of the kite. And the turn. |
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someone went out on a windsurfer a little downwind. What the hell was he thinking? Look at those waves all over the place...
IMO, it wasn't sailable. But I'm sure he had some thrilling moments. |
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| beaufitul turn on a beautiful wave |
And now my session.
It probably was a 9 out of 10. Thanks to the high tide and to the westerly direction that limited the size, the waves were doing a very beautiful thing: peaking at the bowl and tapering down in size all the way through.
At the bowl, there was some chop, but after that first turn, it was smoother and smoother.
Here's my best wave.
A mast high bowl is forming just downwind of me and I see Glenn sailing out downwind of me.
A friend watching you is always an extra motivational factor to try to rip a little harder, so, despite the chop, I carefully bottom turn and go all the way up to hit the lip.
It's not a throwing lip by any means. It's a rather mushy one, but it still was a mast high wave and that, at my skill level, definitely got my heart going...
Now I'm setting up my second bottom turn and Glenn is about to hit the ramp for a jump a few meter downwind of me.
The section is now logo high and and I'm going up the face to hit lip again. Now, try to picture this amazing vision I'm about to have.
I'm looking at that lip that I'm about to hit and in the background there's Glenn up in the sky at the apex of his awesome backloop, looking down to spot his landing.
Once again, I saw that while hitting the lip of a logo high wave.
That was one of the best windsurfing moments of my life, for sure.
Good, that makes up for that super shitty session of last Sunday...
I made three more turns on that wave. I hit the lip at each single one of them, also because the wave tapered down to head, shoulder and finally waist high, so I could be as aggressive as my skills allowed me.
When I kicked out, I was screaming my joy out of my lungs.
Mamma mia, what a wave that was...
The past few days instead it has been glassy surfing paradise and I surfed at least twice a day.
December sucked. January was amazing. Unfortunately I missed the best surfing week of the year (so far) because I was sick, but I sure got the rest of it!
I'm so spent that this morning (Sunday) I couldn't force myself to go surf. I did a laundry instead, and my arms where hurting while hanging the clothes on the wire... I definitely needed a morning rest!
The swell went down a lot in size and the today might be an up the coast deal. That is unfortunate, since the westerly direction is not the best for those reefs.
I'm at the point that I hope it's gonna suck so that I can have a full day of rest... LOL!
For sure I'll take some photos of the windsurfers at Hookipa (which will be sailable and sailed), so stay tuned for a post.
