Patagonia NZ

The turning point came in the ‘23/’24 winter, with the Pipeline airdrop heard ‘round the world. The drone angle of the wave and sequence captured through Ryan ‘Chachi’ Craig’s lens gets heavier every time you see it. The sheer commitment: Eala airborne, feet firmly in the wax, eyes squared down the line. The wave bowling into oblivion.

“That one kind of went viral but for the wrong reasons,” Eala laughs. “It was such a crazy wipeout. That day had a window of two or three hours before it went onshore. This beautiful teepee came to me, and I thought I was going to make the wave, 100 per cent. My board was engaged; the fins were engaged. I was getting ready to take a last-minute swooping bottom turn and pull into a big barrel. Then all the water beneath me became air. Kelly Slater actually commented on the post. I asked him, ‘What would the GOAT do?’ He goes, ‘I would’ve jumped for sure.’ But there was no option of jumping in my mind.”

It was the first time Eala wore a helmet out there. Since then, a lid’s become commonplace for him on big days at Pipe. “I had a weird intuition that day it would be good to try a helmet,” he says. “I was lucky to have it on because when I fell on that wave, I instantly got thrown over and landed on my back on the reef. I was just laying there feeling all the water pushing against my stomach, forcing me down. I remember thinking, this could have been really bad.’ Instead, I was relaxed, like ‘I have a helmet on.’ I blew out both my fin boxes and had some cuts on my back. I called it a day after that one.”

The ghost of that wave motivated him into the next winter. He started taking care of his body during the summer months, training in the offseason with his sights set on “making a really special one” at Pipe.

“I had a lot of close makes the prior winter,” he recalls. “That kept the fuel and fire going to try and get the wave of a lifetime. That wave came to me last winter.” He turns and points to the tube shot blown up and framed on his wall – poised with one hand on the face, two feet on the gas, deep under the hook of a Banzai wormhole. The Black Friday swell that started his dream run last winter also set off a surf season worthy of the Seven-Mile-Miracle moniker.

“That was the first real Pipe swell that winter,” he says. “That day was actually pretty wonky. We surfed Waimea the afternoon before, the buoys were too big for Pipe and the next morning it was still washing through. I thought at one point, everything’s gonna settle and those two magic hours are gonna come out of nowhere.”

Biding his time, he hopped over to Haleiwa to watch his “hānai” brothers, Makai and Landon McNamara’s heats at the contest running that morning. On his way back up Kam Highway, he pulled off at the parking lot, got his board ready and paddled out. He figured he’d wait for it.

“I sat for about an hour,” he says. “Then I watched Kohl Christensen roll into a beautiful one-and-a-half reef wave about 10 feet outside of me. I got so stoked seeing him scratch into that thing and get spit out into the channel, hearing all the whistles. Like, ‘Wow, that was a sick wave. That was the one for the day.’

“Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the same spot, and the wave came in. It had the same look as Kohl’s, but thicker and bigger. I knew it was going to be a super special one. I started my bottom turn and pumped as hard as I could towards the lifeguard tower at Ehukai. It looked like a long Desert Point wall. I was in the barrel just telling myself, ‘Hold on! You better make this thing.’ So, I held on with all my strength and got spit out thinking, ‘Yes, I finally made a proper one… for me.’ I didn’t realise at the time that it was even that gnarly. It felt deep and big, and I was just stoked to make it.”

Eala’s wave kicked off open season for Pipe and Backdoor and by the end of winter, it remained the crowd-favourite for deepest, most critical tube ride – winning him the Blak Bear Surf Club Wave of the Winter cheque over fellow finalists Koa Smith and Shion Crawford.

At the start of December, however, Eala found himself as a third alternate for the ever prestigious and elusive Eddie Aikau Big Wave Invitational. But first, he’d surf the Pipe Masters. “I had a chance to get into the finals at the Pipe Masters… but I had another crazy airdrop wipeout,” he laughs. “But that was the start of this wild run of swell. It went big, 15-18-foot Waimea sessions for seven days straight that helped preheat the oven for the big mamba-bama Eddie swell.”

The Eddie’s run just 11 times since 1984 and getting into the event as a third alternate is almost as rare as Waimea going XL enough to call it on. After Kelly Slater and Keali‘I Mamala pulled out of the contest, celestial alignment continued for the Hawaiians' breakthrough winter. The afternoon before the Eddie, Eala got word he’d have a chance to scratch his name on the leaderboard of surfing’s most prestigious event.

“I wanted to take it all in and enjoy it,” he says. “There was a bit of nervousness for sure, the Eddie’s are always crazy. But I felt a deep connection to Waimea, the ancestors, and my Hawaiian heritage. It was a big dream for me since I was a child to compete in the Eddie, and it got amplified when I saw all my aunties and uncles' tears of joy and stoke for me. I was telling myself, ‘This is a dream. Go for it. Go big. Have fun and enjoy.’”

No stranger to Waimea Bay, Eala took full advantage of the opportunity. Catching bombs in both his heats – the day made that much sweeter when his childhood best friend, Landon McNamara took the win.

While good surfing isn’t measured in total by contest performances and crowd-voted oversized cheques, the visibility of Eala last year couldn’t be ignored. He competed in every event on the North Shore – Haleiwa, Sunset, the Pipe Masters, the Eddie, the Backdoor Shootout, and landed the Wave of the Winter award.

It’s early autumn as we speak; the North Pacific has yet to awaken. Unless something piques his interest, Eala’s planning on staying put and training for the winter on the horizon. He’s caught the foil flu and with the family away for a few days, he’s got a down-winder on the agenda. “It’s a crazy workout,” he says. “The foil is such a sensitive thing; it helps me understand the intricacies of the ocean and my body.”

“If the family were here, we’d probably go down to the tide pools,” he continues. “It’s been cool to be by myself and in my thoughts for a bit. I’m trying to buckle down on my goals, what I want to do this winter, and what brings me happiness. It’s good to do some introspection.”