Every surfer in the world is going to lose a couple of minutes of sleep tonight.
Category Archives: Surfing
Sometimes you’re the chum, and sometimes you’re a badass who fights off sharks with a knife
What? Yeah, I’m not kidding around about that title. This guy, just wins.
Jan Lisewski was kite surfing in the Red Sea (almost literally), trying to sail from Egypt to Saudi Arabia when the wind subsided and left him powerless. So he hunkered down and turned on his emergency beacon, worried a bit, but relatively safe. He drifted toward a reef, which is when he began seeing fins slice through the surface in haphazard routes that made their way ever closer.
So, he did what any of us would have done when a large, toothy fish takes interest in us as a meal. He pulled out his knife and started slashing.
“I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills,” he later told the Polish state news agency PAP. “This battle, which by some miracle I managed the emerge from victorious, lasted all night long.”
Big Wave rider Jeff Rowley deploys airbag to survive wipeout at Jaws
According to this article in Surfer Today, big wave surfer Jeff Rowley was buried so deep after getting pummeled at Jaws that he had to deploy an airbag safety device he was wearing. Apparently, he also has a miniature tank of O2 with him as well.
I’m not sure if the spill in the second wave in this video is the wipeout in question, but it could certainly be a candidate. I’m also unable to confirm if Rowley was wearing the Billabong V1 wetsuit developed by Shane Dorian and Billabong, which was announced last summer.
It’s good to know that the relatively new safety device for surfing can do its job outside of test cases. Wearable airbag technology is proving to be indispensable gear for big wave riders like Rowley and backcountry skiers and snowboarders alike, who risk being buried in tree wells and avalanches.