What a day and what a place this is. The first time I surfed this right was back in the fishing boats days of ’98. I had paddled across a channel, onto an island and walked around the island to find this wave. I was all alone and couldn’t even see the boat. None of the other guys had come with me and no one knew if I was surfing or just out searching around again.
I paddled out just in awe. Adrenaline going through the roof – just peaking – and then a huge tuna, one of the biggest I’ve ever seen that looked like a massive Doggie took off on the shoulder of this set wave and just trimmed along in the wall. Its giant black eye seemed to be fixed on me as it rode this wave in while I was paddling out. The hair on my arms just stood up writing this and remembering it so long ago.
That’s me paddling out on the shoulder and it’s a lot bigger than it looks. This was the only time I can remember hearing what sounded like coral breaking, or coral and rocks rolling along the ocean floor as the sets broke.
I got in behind a few massive things early on and did really well but maybe the adrenaline wore down and I was a bit more cautious later on. We spent three days here and surfed a few different waves but everyday this was the best and as the swell slowly backed down it got more and more fun.
On this particular day massive black lines were coming around the corner and the heart rate was just racing. You had to go and start paddling under them to get in and down. It was the same day that Mikala Jones had an out of body, near death experience at another very heavy right.
This is another photo for Aki. A photo he took of this wave later this day appeared on the back of a very respected Japanese surf mag, as always, unnamed location, and was Aki`s proudest moment as a photographer. It is also featured in this gallery.
– Chris ‘Scuzz’ Scurrah
