Clay Marzo, late save to stall in Maui, Hawaii

When you’re a photographer who lives on the North Shore, your trade ain’t that much different to the mythical shooter of salmon in barrels. But great things don’t come easy and Brent Bielmann, the stealer of this image, knows it better than anyone. “I get the same shit over and over again,” he says. “On the North Shore I can be lazy and do the same things I’m comfortable with.” Brent’s best pal is Cheyne Magnusson, from Maui, but who lives on the North Shore. When Cheyne went chasing a swell on and some new scenery on Maui, Brent hooked onto his caboose. We didn’t know this, maybe you did, but Cheyne’s step-bro is Clay Marzo, the surfer we see here. Clay still lives with his ma and it’s the same woman who birthed red-headed Cheyne. But diff dads with Cheyne obviously drawing the short straw genetically. Anyway, this is a “mysto wave near their house,” says Brent. “I couldn’t believe they were making the drop. If you saw it, you wouldn’t even believe it’s a wave. Just dry reef.”

Size-wise, it’s four-to-six and it breaks real far out. Clay snapped a board on his first wave and swam in for a replacement. And here is Clay falling backwards after dropping in and then turning it into a stall, which he duly completed. “Clay’s kinda like a magician. He can surf anything and make it cool. That was a super dredge on dry reef, literally,” says Brent.