Tahiti Times, Part 1
This was from a trip with “Team Froth” all 3 Gudang bros and Nate Yeomans.... We surfed all day every day and the vibe was infectious. After one session at Big Pass, we motored into shore, and the Tahitians had caught a 15 foot Tiger shark. We checked it out the thing was massive! We then asked them where they caught it and they told us at “Big Pass” where we had been surfing all morning. Haha we were tripping! Anyway this trip was all time. The boys got their quota of sick tubes, and we had some good laughs!
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"This swell came roaring in with a vengeance."
(Text from photo enlarged) :
This swell came roaring in with a vengeance. In the morning it was perfect 4-6 foot fun size Chopes. The first real set hit around 11am and caught everyone by surprise. All of a sudden the ocean was alive and the sets just kept pouring in. By noon it was solid, and a few guys started towing while others were still trying to paddle the West Bowl. As the day went on it continued to get bigger, and soon after that it got scary big. My boat was heading in so I asked Fred Pompemeyer if it was cool if I hopped on his boat. His boat was super packed so he said I could sit up on the roof with him if I wanted. I jumped over with my camera gear, and climbed up on the roof with Fred. The first thing I noticed was there was nothing to hold on to. So we just sat up there teetering on the edge, and held on with all our might trying to stay balanced as we went over the back of the waves.
"Suddenly the ocean went black..."
All the boat drivers started motoring out to sea as one of the biggest sets I’ve ever seen came marching in. I saw Laird and Koa whip it mid-face and start to go....the wave was massive and everyone was screaming “Koa!!!” at the top of their lungs! The wave sucked all the water off the reef, and Koa had to keep negotiating his board and pointing it toward the land to try not to get sucked up and over the falls. It was hands down one of the gnarliest waves I’ve ever witnessed. In the channel it was full on pandemonium. The boats were bouncing off each other and trying not to run over people as everyone raced to get over the back. Our boat crested the top of the wave and started nose-diving down the back. Fred and I held on with or fingernails, both of us almost flew off the boat with our cameras in our hands! It was a crazy day in Tahiti!
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I flew over to Tahiti with Nathan Fletcher and Kalani Chapman for this mega swell. We linked up with Sai Smiley, Kaleo Roberson Sage and Artjeuneau from Hawaii and Kobe Abberton from Australia. and we all stayed in Taa’s house at Teahupoo. 
The swell hit in the middle of the night and woke me up. In the morning we all loaded up in the boat and motored out through the pass. It looked like a Tsunami had hit! There were huge rips going everywhere, and massive swells broke across the outer reefs where I had never seen waves before. We saw a ski pulling up to our boat and it was Ian Walsh and Shane-O (Dorian). I saw Ian whipping Shane into this monster, it had no back and no bottom. Somehow Shane made it and after being blown out into the channel I could tell he had got what he had came for and was done.
"Definitely one of the craziest rides Ive ever witnessed to this day!"
_Nelly