A twenty-foot-plus swell wreaked havoc on the Nth Shore yesterday. The Sunset bike path is in danger of slipping into the ocean and beyond that the road is only a couple of metres away, gradually being undermined by the roaring water. As WSL judge, Pritamo Ahrendt, astutely pointed out, while clutching his baby son to his chest this morning. “If the road falls in you can’t drive around the island.”
Long blocks of concrete, almost the size of telegraph poles, had broken off the path at Sunset and spilled into the menacing shorebreak, where the sand had already been scoured back to reveal an incongruous shelf of volcanic rock. Although Sunset was too wild to surf, if you did go out you would have been dodging concrete pylons that rolled around on rock, as you came in through the shorebreak.
Yesterday, a pack of determined, big wave mavericks took on colossal, messy Waimea, while many of the pros flew to Maui to chase the mystical Honolua Bay.
The North Shore’s resident court jester, Jamie O’Brien, was content to roll around with his entourage in the Pipe Shorey. Makaha on the West side was fifteen foot and clean, while other surfers found solace in the far corners of Oahu.
