Pleasure And Pain

For every great gybe, jump or reach comes the inevitable crash, splash and fail. At Pe’ahi / Jaws in Maui the stakes are high and navigating the thin line between the ride or wipeout of your life is a mix of adrenaline, fear and extreme skill. Antoine Martin and Marcilio “Brawzinho” Browne tell how they manage the challenge as they recount a session from the beginning of the 2016/17 winter in Maui.

- John Carter

BACKGROUND

The winter of 2015/16 in Hawaii was hailed as one of the best ever seasons for waves as a ‘super El Nino’ event took hold of the Pacific ocean producing back to back xxl swells. The winter of 2016/17 so far in Hawaii has been characterized by ‘La Nina’, which frequently but not always, occurs after an El Nino event. The two events represent opposite oceanic patterns: El Nino by a warming sea surface temperature and La Nina by a cooling one. The strongest El Nino event in the past two decades occurred last winter and contributed to the busiest Central Pacific hurricane season on record and huge swells, as well as an abnormally dry winter in Hawaii. The 2016/17 ‘La Nina’ event has seen less frequent big swells in Maui for their winter so far, but at the start of November Antoine Martin and Marcilio Browne were two of a group of sailors who lucked into an early start to the big wave Maui sailing season at Pe’ahi / Jaws and here tell their tales of risk and reward, pleasure and pain!

ANTOINE MARTIN

This wipeout was very different to the last big one I had at Jaws. I went up to Pe’ahi super confident this day. This is not my first time up there so I was not scared. So far I have not made any aerials so this time my plan was to try to hit the lip! After my first two waves I was getting frustrated. The aerial was all that was on my mind. That was my goal! My third wave was one of the biggest of the session. As I wanted to do an aerial I went deep to be sure I was in the right position to hit the west bowl.