This was the first afternoon of the first day of a trip. We were the only ones there, no one on land and we had it like this for three days alone. The swell finally got smaller but the winds were great and it was a rare three-day window of all day offshores without big weather.
At this time I was the only one in the water – everyone else was surfed out and on the boat. The shot was taken from in the keyhole. I think it was Manuel the Seppo who took the shot, a champion guy who had won awards for photography working at the Washington Post. I don’t even remember his real name, but we dubbed him Manuel the Seppo because he could speak Spanish better than the Mexicans.
I remember cramping up in my elbows as I spent about 9 hours in the surf this day and there is some great footage floating around of me kicking out of tubes and hitting my arms to try and straighten them out as they were so cramped. I couldn’t bring myself to paddle the five minutes to the boat for a banana or water.
Paddling out and watching 8 waves spiral and twist perfectly down this amazing reef with not another soul out and sheet glass perfection is something I will never forget.
– Chris ‘Scuzz’ Scurrah
