Mikala Jones, a professional surfer known for her photos and videos filmed from inside the narrow tubes of breaking waves, has died after an accident while surfing in Indonesia, her family said.
His father, John Jones, told the Associated Press that her 44-year-old son was riding the waves on Sunday during a trip to the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra when his surfboard fin severed his femoral artery, which supplies blood to the lower extremities.
This week, the online surfing world mourned a member of his tribe and circulated some of his most popular works, including a photograph showing him peering through the barrel of a crashing wave as he rode it into an opening of sunlight. .
In one of Mr. Jones’s latest instagram posts, was filmed standing on a surfboard as the walls of a wave folded in around her. “Time to live,” she wrote. Besides his wife and kids, he said, surfing was “all he needed.”
isabella jones, one of his daughters and professional surfers wrote messages on social media about Mr. Jones, who grew up on the east side of Oahu, Hawaii, and later lived in Indonesia with his wife, Emma Brereton, Isabella and another daughter, Violet.
Keala Ashton, Jones’ nephew, was surfing with him in the isolated region when he was injured, family friend Nathan Myers said in an interview Wednesday.
“I tried my best to do all I could and I’m sorry it wasn’t enough”, Mr. Ashton wrote on Instagram. “We were in an environment that was as tough as it gets.”
As described in a profile in The Surfer’s Journal published in 2014, Mr. Jones set out from Hawaii to Papua New Guinea, Panama, Sri Lanka and the Azores to find waves. In Sumatra, he “bagged more than one cover photo standing in the belly of the beast,” the article, written by Myers, says.
“It’s like a disease,” Jones told Myers. “But when you get to a spot you’ve been researching and the swell is there, the wind is just right and you’re about to paddle off into empty perfection, that’s what it’s all about. That’s where I get my fix.”
“I love traveling. I love surfing. But right at the point where the two come together, for me that’s the best moment. That is what I continue to pursue,” she said.
In Bali, he opened a surf shop and worked with clothing sponsors while continuing to travel, the article says. Myers, who was also Jones’s neighbor in Canggu, Bali, for a decade, said Jones was part of a generation of “free surfers” who investigate where the best waves are and search the world for them.
“They are chasing storms,” Myers said, “and they would take amazing photos. He became one of the best POV guys,” he said, using cinematic shorthand for the point of view.
Mr. Jones made some of the best POV videos in the sport while barrel riding, using techniques he had worked on for over a decade, including cameras mounted on boards and hand-held rigs, before starting a collaboration. with GoPro.
As a producer of surf videos and photography, he started looking for not only good waves, but also the light of dawn. “I’ve always wanted to see the sunrise,” he said.
“When the sun is out, you only have 15 or 20 minutes tops to get into a barrel,” he said.
“I just called it work,” Jones said, referring to his use of the word during the video interview. “But is fun.”
