Night Rider

Jaws, Maui, is hairy enough for the average surfer in the light of day. But. Can you imagine burning down the face of a 35-footer, wind whistling in your ear, eyes blurred, sled bouncing, feet clenching under straps… in the dead of night? For 28-year-old Australian big-wave surfer Mark Visser, a night time jaunt on some of Jaws’ colossal surges became a reality last night. It wasn’t just a stay-out-past-sunset-type deal eithers. That shit was at 2.00am local Hawaiian time, when self-loathing people are balls-deep into a bar stint and self-respecting people are in dreamland.

Thanks to some NASA-style submarine lighting, Visser surfed 30-40 foot freight-trains at the famous Hawaiian outer-reef in a buoyancy vest and surfboard that were both modified with “specially engineered” LED lights. The hardware lit the wave and board in the right places at the right time, without hindering Mark or his team’s vision. That’s a lot of faith in some gadgetry.

“It wasn’t until I saw the pictures I realized how big it was. This project has been two years in the planning and it was the scariest, but most exciting thing I have ever done,” says Visser. “Riding in complete darkness meant I had to go off feeling. I had to zone out from how you normally ride and just be part of the wave. I am so pumped to achieve something that no one thought possible and that I was told was couldn’t be done.”

This’ll be the first in a series of similar feats that Visser’ll be getting amongst, as part of a documentary collective called 9 Lives.

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