JIMMY - the film guy

Mikey and I were in Hawaii for the late season. It was mid-January and everyone was talking about this giant swell coming to hit the North Shore. So big that there was a chance of the The Eddie running. At the same time, Banting and Andrew Shields were trying to pull a crew together to go to P-Pass and wanted me to come film. The same swell was due to hit there a few days later and everything looked pretty perfect. I asked Mikey if he wanted to come and he was psyched.

There were kind of two crews there: Alex Grey, Davey Cathels, Laura Enever and Asher Pacey. Our crew was Jay Davis, Banting and Mikey. The ambience was amazing. From the boat everyone was just screaming, watching the boys get tube after tube. I’ve done a few surf trips and these were probably the craziest waves I’ve ever seen.

The swell hit a few days after we got there and Mikey surfed for eight hours straight and got all the bombs. He was just patient. He sat in the pack and chatted with the crew, calling a bunch of them in. Even when it was his turn and a good one would come through he would call someone else in. He was out there for one thing, to get the bombs. Alex Grey and Mikey set the standard that day. They took it to the next level. Jay Davis told me after that session that it was the best tube riding he'd ever seen from any 18 year old.

It was a pretty big gamble for us; leaving the North Shore. When you’re meant to be filming the team and you bail to go shoot at another location it's pretty risky. I was kinda stressing. After Mikey got that one wave I knew the trip was worthwhile. He took off so deep and I thought he was gone for sure. It was a mutant one. I always shoot until the end of the wave just in case and Mikey made it look too easy. He just popped up over the shoulder and didn’t claim or anything. It was crazy. After that day he didn’t surf again.

MIKEY

I’ve never seen waves that good in my life. It almost looked like reverse Chopes on a couple. It's crazy. I’ve never been out in the surf where there have been constant perfect waves with 10 people max. That day was the best day of my life. Definitely. It was honestly perfect. Every time you would get one there was always someone coming through on the next wave in a sick pit just standing tall. You’d just be sitting in the channel screaming “Yeahhhhh”.

On the low tide it’s almost un-surfable. It would be so gnarly if you fell off on some of ‘em. You’d go straight over into the reef. I was sitting further out when it started to pick up. It was so strange. All of a sudden you would see this big wall of water appear out of nowhere and all the water in front of it would be getting sucked dry. Pretty much below sea level. The waves caught all of us by surprise. It just kept getting bigger.

It was so fun. I can’t believe how many waves everyone got. Some of them were almost too easy the way they would let you out. It was so sick. The morning session was perfect, but by the end of the day we had all forgotten about the morning session. Coming back in on the boat after that arvo session everyone was quiet and hardly talking, we all just had the biggest grins on our faces but we were all so buggered. I pretty much slept for two days after that surf.