Like all good sessions, it was a last minute decision to give chase. I didn’t even know if there would be surfers on the hunt. The chance to shoot a clean, long-period swell with perfect winds at dawn was enough to invoke that sense of hopeless FOMO – the type you can only resolve by giving into temptation.
This wave, in its perfect form, is one of the most beautiful in the country and worth driving through the wee hours to make it there in pre-dawn light. To surf it is another story. It can be a horrifying ordeal with a shallow reef that sucks dry at low tide, toothy enough to keep crowds to a minimum. There was a little trepidation – the last two times the stars aligned for a solid day out here the sessions ended with broken bones.
Thankfully, the two tow teams of Dave Lyons and James Cross and brothers Jack and Sam Blackman managed to emerge mostly unscathed. That was surprising because the amount of west in the swell – the same swell that scoured Bells Beach of sand a few days earlier, didn’t line up so well with the reef.
The first waves of the sets were exploding way up on the reef and barely linking to the bowl. The third and fourth were better and the last waves in each set pushed wide. Several times Sam and Dave were left dangerously on the wrong side of the backdoor section – Sam opting to straighten out on a few and accept the flailing that was ahead of him. Even the good ones were prone to having a step in them … Sam twice paid the price on it, but managed to land it a few times, too. There was talk of abandoning the session – right about the time the offshore came through and brought with it some order to the lineup.
The higher tide helped and for a few hours the reef played ball. Sam and Dave both got some incredible waves – not all-time in size for this spot, but big enough to dish out some beatings … and some moments of truly incredible vision.
On the last wave Jack dropped Sam into the perfect line into the bowl. None of us expected the step to rear its head again, but it did and it sent Sam into probably the worst position you could put yourself in. Sam wore the full brunt of the wave and was pinned and ragdolled across the top of the reef. He was held down for what seemed an eternity. Eventually popping up as the next wave loomed across the reef. Jack swung in with the rescue ring like a rodeo cowboy lassoing a calf. He managed to pull off a pretty amazing rescue before the next two-story high wall of whitewater consumed them both.
There was some relief for all of us to see that rescue. All day the rescue drivers were on point – plucking the surfers out of the impact zone way more often than usual. The skill of Crossy and Jack is testament to the work these two put in to running safety.
Not all strike missions come up trumps, but sometimes the dice just need to be rolled.
Gallery: Stormwater