Ian Walsh Pulls Back The Curtain On The Biggest Wave of His Life

And while that sounds relatively simple, it turned into this massive production, as everything does. All of a sudden all kinds of people wanted to go and document it all. They wanted to shoot everything from the time we got there to the time we left, and hopefully all the madness that went down in between.

  20 or 30 phone calls later and most everything’s sorted. We got boats and a helicopter lined up for the media guys, but more importantly, Shane and I had dialed in everything we needed. We had a place to stay, made sure someone had the ski charged, fueled and ready, and had my gear and tow board packed away at Raimana’s house. But even with all this nonsense some part of me still felt very committed doing good in the contest at Sunset, so we’d planned to surf Thursday when the swell peaked then fly out that night through L.A. so I could be back in Hawaii by dinnertime on Friday.

Here we are, heading down to Tahiti for the biggest swell in two years, and for as psyched as I was, there are always nerves when it comes to seeing what the day will hold. 

Anxiety or not, everything went relatively smoothly and by Wednesday night Shane and I were in Tahiti. As we were driving out across Tahiti Iti you could see the waves washing onto the road, which was a pretty obvious

indication that the swell had arrived. I tried to go to bed at about 1:00am when I got to the house. I maybe slept for a little over three hours, but at 4:30 on the dot I was up and wired. I started to get all my stuff together. It was pitch black and really loud from the waves. At about 5:30 Shane pulled up to our house on the ski we had rented and we headed out.  

We watched it for about 15 minutes and we decided I should get a few to warm up. On the very first wave I was a little too deep so I started doing these huge pumps to get more speed as I pulled into the barrel. On the third pump my nose caught and I went tumbling head over heals through the barrel. I got pounded pretty violently, only to pop up and see Jamie Sterling about to pull into a solid 15-footer that was going to unload right on my head. With my two lifejackets on I could barely get under the water and had to just let the wave hit me. I got absolutely anailated. By the third wave Shane was there to pick me up and we headed out the back. 

Not such a good start, but I was defiantly warmed up! We’d wait for about an hour and a half or longer for our next wave. We missed two good ones because everyone was hassling so bad. People were jonesing for every scrap that came through, it was ridiculous. So after the long wait we stared going for what looked like a pretty big

wave as Raimana was yelling for us to go. Two other teams were trying to get it so Shane got all NASCAR, driving really fast to make sure we got there first. As one of the teams gave way, I just let go of the rope so the other team would know we were on this one.

I let go way up the reef and a little earlier than I would have liked, or probably should have. Then the wave just started to jack up and up and up. It got so steep that I couldn’t really do the big pumps to get more speed because it felt like my board might just give out. As I got into the barrel it blew up so wide it felt like could have parked a big, yellow school bus in there next to me. 

The wave had so much momentum I thought it was going to catch up to me and eat me a alive. I held my line the best I could and leaned into my heals as hard as I could. I could feel the foam ball behind me grazing my back foot. As I felt the end coming the foam ball levitated my board up and shot me out into the

channel. I had no idea how big the wave was until I saw photos later, but the reaction from the 150 people in the channel was something I have never seen before. A standing ovation from everybody in their boats.

After that Shane and I switched and I towed him into a couple. As he does out there, he got this one crazy wave that was possibly the deepest barrel I have ever seen. That guy is hands down one of the best surfers in the world in any size waves, 1 foot to 70 feet. It was a complete scene out there all day long, and all told, Shane and I each only caught three or four waves the whole time we were out. 

We got in around sundown and as I was packing and having a beer with the boys, recounting the day, my mom called to see if I was all right. I felt like I’d been hit by a train twice, but I told her all was good. She also told me that the contest didn’t run at Sunset. The gamble had most definitely paid off. All I have to say in the end is thank you to Shane for the wave of my life!