“I spent part of almost every day of my life thinking about this wave and what could have gone differently. And if that sounds crazy, it’s because it is.”
I love that soundbite from Albee Layer because it captures how committed the man is not just to catching, but maximizing and performing on the most consequential Jaws waves he can paddle into. Even on an outrageously big day, with extra-long-period energy pulsing through the lineup, Albee kept his same drive: Just get barreled. The wave in question was one of several enormous rights he rode on the famed December 22 swell and was the focus of a breakdown he shared on his Instagram.
Albee has three entries from the two waves in this year’s Big Wave Challenge: Men’s Ride of the Year, Men’s Paddle and Wipeout of the Year. Let’s watch and hear Albee discuss the latter, the one he referenced above and the one that has troubled him so. The transcriptions below are snippets — you can listen to the man himself here and here.
“You can see I’m sitting pretty deep on the reef at this point,” he continued. “That’s because I had already gotten three waves and I was all warmed up. I was ready to shoot my shot at catching the one. This day had the potential to catch the best wave I’ve ever ridden and I wanted to try. Jaws is trippy because it breaks more like a slab than it does a big wave. With most slabs, you want to be behind it, the deeper you are, usually the easier the entry is into the wave.
“You can see on this one, besides that giant boil, it was a fairly easy drop for how big the wave actually was. So as soon as I get to my feet, I angle toward the channel a bit and start knifing it down the line. You have to do that to make a wave from this deep. You can see halfway down the face I kind of start to ease up on the edge. The funniest part is that was a choice. I thought if I continued that line, and it’s hard to do, but I also thought I might outrun the barrel. So I eased up, thought I could go to the bottom and pull up into it because I thought the wave was going to throw out like crazy. And that was where I fucked up, I think. At this point, I looked up, saw the lipline wasn’t doing what I thought it was going to do. I looked like it was about to land on me. And I had a complete flashback to my really bad fall when I got the concussion that changed my life, really.
Nick Ricca/Big Wave Challenge
“So I put everything I could into my toe side rail and was just able to sneak under the worst of the lip. But still got tagged by it. I got pushed face-first so hard into the water that my mouth blew open. The inside of my lip and my gums were all bleeding when I came up. And my nose was bleeding as well. And I just braced for a beating after that. But it’s strange because when you fall on a wave that big, anything short of almost drowning feels like a blessing. Because you’re expecting the absolute worst at that point. So when I came up, I was actually a bit surprised that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Even though it was still probably one of the worst beatings of my life.”
Albee got driven straight down rather than out of the impact zone, meaning the water patrol couldn’t get him before the next wave arrived, so he wore that one on the head, too. But you already know this wasn’t the highlight of Albee’s session. Far from it. After paddling out from the rocks with Wilem Banks and Tom Lowe, he paddled into one of the tallest and cleanest waves of the day, getting so comfortable in an XXL pocket he even gave a little soul arch to take it all in. He called it, “The biggest wave I’ve caught and probably the biggest swell I’ve ever seen out there.” Again, he analyzed the ride on Instagram, which is partly transcribed below.
“The most unique thing about the swell was the swell period. It was 25 seconds and even plus at times. A normal swell out there is about 17 seconds. And a longer swell period basically means more energy behind each wave. But you can see right here how the wave is doubling up out underneath a ski driver. That’s abnormal for Jaws, for it to do that far out at the north peak like this, and that’s because of the long swell period.
“On a normal day at Jaws, I’m usually sitting under the ledge on the west bowl to try to knife into the barrel. But when it gets this big, the north peak and the west bowl kind of become one wave. You can tell this is happening because you’ll see a crease kind of halfway down the drops, and that’s the normal spot we would sit on the west bowl. But you’ve got to be outside of it when it’s this big.
Slater Neborsky/Big Wave Challenge
Getting over that crease without it being too steep and having to airdrop is one of the hardest things on a day this big — picking a wave where you can do that. If you pick a wave that has an entry and you get over the crease, that’s all the hard part with positioning and picking the right wave. On this one, all that worked out. Once I got to the bottom, I just looked up and saw how beautiful and giant the wave was. And from there, I just got to have fun. I got to do a slow bottom turn, pull up into the pocket and give a soul arch, which I kind of need to stop doing because — pro tip for big waves — if you want it to look bigger, just crouch as low as you can get. Don’t make it look easy. It almost takes away from the ride, but I can’t stop myself from doing that.”
Don’t worry, Albee, it didn’t look that easy.
Related: Albee Layer Savors Jaws Swell Bender In ‘Less Than Easy’