The Eddie Aikau Invitational | Waimea Bay | Oahu

The Eddie Aikau big wave invitational is for elite few pros who don't fear dropping into 50 foot waves. Lots of factors are needed for the contest to run: 25 ft + waves, conditions, etc. I booked a ticket from Kona to Honolulu on Monday to leave Tuesday AM in hopes to catch the contest scheduled to run between Monday to Wednesday. I chose correctly with an early AM flight straight to the rental car counter and off to the North Shore. With 30,000 attendees, I had to park 2.8 miles away from the scene at Waimea Bay. I walked from Laniakea to meet people at the Bay. Luckily, I found my NJ transplant friends who had the only EZ Up tent on the beach. They camped out overnight and staked their claim at 4 AM to get an amazing view of all the action. The waves were huge and crowd was freakin out when surfers rode massive waves all the way to the beach and pulled into monstrous close-out barrels.




Luckily, I hitched a ride with my camping buddies through bumper to bumper traffic all the way back to my rental car.