Where as anyone can be towed into a big wave, it takes a special person to be able to actually paddle in to something huge. Its a test of skill, stamina and balls to take on raw energy like we were after.
Australia doesn’t have too many waves that break like Mavericks in California, Waimea Bay in Hawaii, Todos Santos in Mexico or Dungeons South Africa. Australia’s reefs to be more like “slabs” – big cavenous waves breaking over a rock shelf where the only way to get into them by a jet ski assist. There are some big wave paddle in set ups, but they are few and far between and driving a long way is the only way to find them if you want to ride a lot of them.
With the East Coast of Australia lacking any sign of upcoming swell and a pathetic past 8 months of anything worthy, we were hungry and willing to take a punt on looking around southern facing coastlines that are open to early winter storm swells. I drove for 2000km south from the Gold Coast, meeting surfers Justin “Jughead” Allport and Paul Morgan in Sydney along the way, whilst Jamie flew down to Melbourne from the Goldy and met us on location. The drive itself wasnt without drama. Just 4 hours into the 24 hour drive the bearings on the jet ski trailer blew out, leaving me stuck on a Saturday night not very far down the road and very close to being skunked from the outset. Luckily my dad lived an hour away and drove up with a car boot full of tools we prepared to replace the bearings, the only thing was that the car parts place didnt open till 9am the next morning…..
By 11am the next day I was back on the road, and that left 20 hours to drive 1700km – non stop if I was to reach the destination in time for the swell. I endured roadworks, vintage cars going less then half the speed limit, sunday drivers staying 20-30km hour under the speed limit, passing a horrendous multi car road crash that was sobering to say the least. Picking up Jughead and Morgs along the way to share the driving was a blessing, but none of us had slept at all by the time we made the southern coastline at 6am. The adrenalin kept us going, that of big waves and cold water.
A break we were hoping to score was too big, so we searched a little further and saw something that resembled a makable wave a fair distance from the shore. The ski was used for a closer look and to shoot from, also as a safety unit in case things went wrong, which was a distinct possibility.
The swell actually peaked during the middle of the night at a whopping 30ft at 16 secs and was on the decline. At first a few 20 ft bombs came along, but being so far out to sea with no landmarks the boys had trouble finding the take off on the shifting sets. They managed to score a few big ones, and even bigger ones on the head, but alas were all safe and super stoked on what they scored.
The boards they are riding are around 10ft long, so I’ll let you do the maths on how big these waves were. We called them 15ft in surfers terms, maybe a little bigger on some of them. We were hoping for bigger – but dont you always????
Heres a few shots that try and tell the story, although nothing could show just how much stoke we all had. It isn’t just about the waves that were ridden, but the adventure along the way of getting there, the “journey” is always more important then the achievement, its equally about the gathering of passionate and like minded people who simply thrive on the natural high that this lifestyle provides!
Lookout for the upcoming feature in Australia’s Surfing Life magazine on the full journey……..
