The blog has been taken over 
I’ll be updating some of the blog since Kate has been very busy with work lately. I’ll start with the Eddie Challenge in early December. Yeah, we’re a little behind! The Eddie Challenge is in memory of Eddie Aikau who was one of the first lifeguards in Waimea. He was also one of the first big wave surfers there. He ended up being lost at sea many years ago trying to paddle to shore from a boat he was on doing an open ocean transit. He was never seen again. This compition has all of the big wave surfers in the world. It is only held when the conditions are right, at least 25ft waves, and the right wind conditions. It’s the 25th anniversary Eddie challenge, but it’s only been run 8 times total!
We went up to the north shore the day before the event to check out the waves and scout a place to watch. Too bad there were thousands of others with the same idea!
This is what the waves looked like the night before the competition.
And someone was cold
The following day was the actual competition. We headed up at around 8am. It ended up taking more time to find a parking spot (which ended up being 2 miles away) than to drive up to the north shore. But the walk was well worth it. We found a nice seating area ontop of the rocks with a good view of everything. It’s a good thing we weren’t on the beach, or we wouldn’t have seen anything. The power of these 40+ foot waves was amazing. We could feel them crashing a few hundred feet away. I can’t believe anyone would surf in these waves. One guy actually got hurt the day before, when he fell in the wave. The power of the water alone caused his foot to become detached from his ankle! Needless to say, he didn’t compete. Enjoy the pictures!
This is why we wouldn’t have seen anything from the beach…
