Micala Jones, a professional surfer known for his photography and videos shot from inside the narrow tubes of breaking waves, has died after an accident while surfing in Indonesia, his family said.
His father is John Jones The Associated Press That his 44-year-old son was out on the surf Sunday during a trip to the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra when a flipper on a surfboard severed his femoral artery, which supplies blood to his lower extremities.
This week, the surfing world mourned a member of his tribe and posted some of his most famous work, including a photo showing him looking through the pipe of a breaking wave as he rode it into a sunlit hole.
In one of Mr. Jones Latest Instagram postsHe filmed himself standing on a surfboard as walls of a wave swirled around him. “It’s time to live,” he wrote. Besides his wife and children, he said surfing is “all I need”.
Isabella Jones One of his daughters, 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, and Isabella and another daughter, Violet.
A family friend, Nathan Myers, said in an interview on Wednesday that Kyla Ashton, Mr Jones’ nephew, was surfing with him in the isolated area when he was injured.
“I did 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 difficult as it is.”
As described in a Profile in Surfer magazine published in 2014Mr. Jones set off from Hawaii to Papua New Guinea, Panama, Sri Lanka and the Azores to find surf. In Sumatra, said the article written by Mr. Myers, “he carried more than one cover shot and stood long in the belly of the beast.”
“It’s like a disease,” Mr. Jones said to Mr. Myers. “But when you stop at a place you were looking for and puff there, the wind is so good and you’re about to paddle out to empty perfection, that’s it. That’s where I get my fix.”
“I love to travel. I love to surf. But the point where the two meet – for me, that’s the best moment. That’s what I’m constantly chasing,” he said.
The article stated that in Bali, he set up a surf shop and worked with clothing patrons while continuing to travel. Mr. Myers, who was also Mr. Jones’ neighbor in Canggu, Bali, for a decade, said Mr. Jones was among a generation of “free surfers” who sought out and followed the best waves around the world.
“They chase storms, they take amazing pictures. He’s become one of the best POV guys,” Mr. Myers said, using the cinematic shorthand for point-of-view.
Mr. Jones has made some of the best point-of-view sports videos on barrel rides, using techniques he worked on for more than a decade, including board-mounted cameras and handheld rigs, before he began collaborating with GoPro.
As a producer of surf videos and photography, he began pursuing not only good waves but the light of dawn. “I’ve always wanted to get a sunrise,” he said.
“When the sun comes out, you only have 15 or 20 minutes to get to the keg,” he said.
“I just described it as working,” Mr. Jones said, noting his use of the word during the video interview. “but it’s fun.”