today was something else. I think I had ran out of adrenaline by about 11am haha.
We started off the day with a sup paddle down the lagoon. we decided to try to find some whales, and to paddle all the way to teahupoo, about 5 miles away on water. the paddle at first was nice and easy, we had a tail wind. once we decided to leave the lagoon through the pass the swell was pretty strong. I had a fun time practicing my balance on a SUP in waves. I paddled like mad to get out of the lagoon, the waves were pretty strong and big, luckily no big ones broke on me. right when we get outside of the lagoon and enter the ocean (we're about 1.25 miles from shore at this point) mat says, okay time to look for whales. not 4 seconds later we hear "pusssshhhhhhhhh" the sound of the whale blowing air through their blow hole at the surface. sure enough it was a mom whale and her baby. the mom was massive. I don't know exactly how long she was, but maybe a school bus and a half. I paddled over to be closer to them, but not too close. I didn't want to scare them or risk having them jump and land on me! we followed them for about a mile or two, meeting up with them after each one of their big dives. it was simply amazing. I've always wanted to be that close to a whale. It was a rush for sure. we parted ways with the whale and then made our way over to teahupoo (world famous surf spot).
No one was at teahupoo, which is not normal. when the wave breaks there are usually people there riding it. it is known for having the biggest barrel out of amy wave in the world. seeing it in person humbles you. the spot is scary, huge wave in 4 ft of water, right over razor sharp reefs. if you fall on the wave, you better say your prayers lol. we tied up the oc1 and the sup and then swam over to get a closer look at the wave. I was checking out fish too, they were huge! massive parrot fish, and trigger fish. We dove under a couple small waves, but mostly just chilled and took it easy. all of a sudden i see mat get frantic, he starts to swim sooo fast and i realize a big set is coming. I'm swimming so fast, in the pics it looks like i am leaving a boat wake haha. Mat had fins on, but i did not. So i had to swim extra hard to avoid getting caught in the wave. I was semi scared, but i figured i could probably make it under the wave. I swam so hard and dove down as deep as i could. i was not that close to the top of the wave but it still sucked on my feet. for a split second i thought maybe the wave was going to suck me back and catch me! it was kinda freaky. so i make it under that one alive, but then right after it there are three more, and each one is bigger! it turns out that mat got pics of me swimming at and then diving under the second one. When i got home and saw the pics my mouth dropped. the wave was about twice the size as i thought it was. something like 13-14ft tall, and a huge perfect barrel. I still cannot believe i actually dove under a big teahupoo set. I've seen pics of this wave for so many years, and never thought i would do this. it was nuts! Once i got past those waves i had enough lol. I swam at a sprint speed all the way back to the sup and oc1 haha. I didn't want to risk getting caught in another big set because i didn't know how much gas i had left in me, since i had been swimming non stop under waves for 3 or so minutes hard! lol.
After the second drain of adrenaline we paddled back into the ocean, and made our way down to a pass entrance. Sure enough the pass looked calm, but when i made my way though it a big set came, and pretty much closed out the whole pass. luckily i was able to avoid getting caught in a breaking wave and made it through unharmed haha. matt was yelling at me to drop onto my knees to take the waves in safely but i instead just stayed standing and paddled in.. So 3x of adrenaline pumping in my body in a short period of time haha. We paddled the rest of the way in unharmed and then had breakfast.
After breakfast we looked at the whale and the teahupoo pics. I still can't believe how big the waves were. I really am glad i didn't get sucked into the wave and grinned up like cheese on a cheese grater haha. I did a little bit of snorkeling but the water was kind of cloudy at the surface, i think due to all the freshwater (rain) that had come in.
We surfed the net a bit and then took a paddle north this time, with some mangos. Midway into our paddle we stopped and ate a mango, and then paddled back in before it got too dark.
we cooked steaks and pasta for dinner tonight. food never tastes better than after a long work out of a day.
I swear I'll never forget today, until the day i die. being up close to the mom and baby whale, and diving under teahupoo, this is going to be hard to top.
sleep time!
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