Jamie O’Brien made the most of a trip to California, managing to squeeze in two radically different surf sessions and save a struggling swimmer.
His day started with a check of the Wedge in Newport Beach, linking up with local surfers Sage Burke and Kai Thompson. O’Brien’s brand, Fun Day Surf, which is launching a line of soft-tops in June, sponsors both Burke and Thompson. They found some sand-sucking barrels, and, as often is the case at the Wedge, were launched over the falls plenty of times, too.
At the end of the session, O’Brien noticed a young swimmer in distress and handed her his board. The lifeguards jumped into action soon thereafter and escorted her to shore.
“I wouldn’t say I saved the girl’s life, but I definitely helped save the girl’s life,” O’Brien said. “I was paddling for a wave, looked on the inside, and the girl was just there with no fins, with no idea she was at six-foot Wedge. I was like, ‘Swim under the wave,’ and swam under the wave, threw her my board. Meanwhile, the lifeguard was eating a sandwich on the tower, panicked last second, ran out. I met him halfway and we brought her in safely.”
Later in the day, O’Brien and Thompson headed south to Laguna to breach the creek at Aliso Beach. O’Brien, who said they sneakily had been “playing cat and mouse” with the lifeguards all day to find a time to dig out the sand, rode the wave upright and on his belly.
“We just got so lucky that that actually happened,” O’Brien said. “Now look at the beach — completely destroyed.
