This is the thrilling moment a professional surfer jumped ship as a major wave at a California surfing spot crashed into his boat.
Mark Healey, 33, was at Mavericks, a famous big wave surfing spot near Half Moon Bay, when he saw the wave coming toward him and made the split second decision.
Healey turned to his friends and said ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I’m jumping’.
‘Typically, in a potential maritime disaster, the best idea is to stay with the boat’, ‘But I really didn’t feel like getting smashed around like an ice cube in a shaker.’
Healey, who is also a free-diver and part-time Hollywood stuntman, sailed over deck and into the sea while his friends held on hard to the railing.
After the wave passed, the boat was still standing upright and Healey got picked up by his friends, who he said were ‘basically crying laughing at me’.
‘I came up pretty much dying laughing, and then I checked to make sure everybody was okay on the boat,’ he said.
‘There was some damaged equipment, soaked cameras, but everybody was pretty much in good shape.’
Healey posted a video of his incredible jump on his official Facebook page in December, writing ‘This was the best wave I got at Mavericks Saturday!’
‘That’s me flying through the air, trying to put as much space between myself and the potentially doomed boat.’
The video only recently went viral after it won the 2015 Wipeout of the Year at the XXL Big Wave Awards last week.
