When a huge set closed out Waimea Bay during last week’s Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau big wave contest, the lifeguards and watermen on rescue watercraft, who protect the surfers, had just seconds to think about saving themselves.

As the first wave, estimated at 60 feet or higher, rose above him, veteran lifeguard and waterman Brian Keaulana, of the Hawaiian Water Patrol, said, “It’s like looking into a dinosaur’s mouth. You’re wondering if it’s going to swallow you. … There’s no way out. When a closeout set comes, everybody is in trouble.”

Keaulana and four other members of the Hawaiian Water Patrol team decided to outrun the wave toward shore.

Honolulu City and County rescue watercraft operator Jeff Okuyama went the other way, away from shore.

“It’s kind of scary and you get that feeling down in your stomach: ‘Oh, my goodness, what is this thing coming at you,’” he said.

Okuyama said he saw some of the other rescue watercraft head out initially and then turn around toward shore.

Not wanting to cross paths and get too close to the other watercraft, Okuyama said he decided to go out and over the set.

“I don’t want to turn around and bang them,” he said.

It helped, Okuyama said, that he had been out during other high surf episodes at Waimea earlier in the month.

“I felt confident I could make it over the wave,” he said.

After making it over the first wave, a second back set rolled in.

In a video taken by the Star-Advertiser, Okuyama’s rescue watercraft can be spotted — a speck on top of the second wave — near the mark of 28 seconds, as it barely makes it over before the wave breaks.

Okuyama said he probably had only a second to spare before he and the watercraft would have gone over the falls and would have needed rescuing.

As soon as he was outside the surf zone, Okuyama said he turned around, looking for surfers caught in the set who needed help.

The surfers have nowhere to go but down, under the water, Okuyama said.

When that happens, they can “tombstone,” he said. They dive or are pushed so deep underwater that the leash attached to the board stretches to its limit and the board sticks straight up in the air, like a tombstone.

Leashes can snap and boards can break when that happens, Okuyama said.

Keaulana said he had to put fear aside when the set broke and think about what was happening around him.

A lot of factors go into the decision to go toward shore.

Watercraft use water propulsion to go forward. So the whitewater foam created by big waves — a mixture of air and water — causes the watercraft to lose power.

You can’t go so fast that you get caught in the whitewater in the wave ahead of you, but you have to stay ahead of the whitewater of the wave crashing behind you.

In addition, if you go too fast, the watercraft can get caught up in the wave and be swept onto the beach, and potentially, into the crowd on the beach.

You also have to stay out of the path of the other watercraft coming in.

“Whitewater conditions are super dangerous,” Okuyama said.

Keaulana said because Okuyama and another rescue watercraft headed out, he knew that they would be in position to rescue any surfers who got into trouble. The rescue watercraft going in would have taken longer to get back out.

Keaulana noted that at the Eddie, there were six or seven watercraft in the water watching over seven to 14 professional surfers, who know how to handle themselves in the water.

When giant surf rolls in Tuesday and Wednesday, Okuyama and perhaps one other rescue watercraft will be on their own, watching over less-experienced surfers.

“It’s for sure going to be big and dangerous again,” Okuyama said. “It’s crazy.”

But, he said, there’s no other place he’d rather be.

“It’s a rush,” he said. “I love being out there and helping people out.”