Searching for Red Beards
In the depths of winter last year, the charts lit up on the prospects of finding a notorious slab named red beards. Fraught with tales of hideous beatings and two wave hold downs. This wave comes from deep water onto this shallow shelf and chews itself along a ledge to where it finishes or closes out next to dry rock, but the barrel you get is epic. I got the team together. My tow partner Tom Godden, a renowned architect from the region and photog and bodyboarder Kim Feast. I mobilised my family too and made for a holiday adventure.
Tom and I surfed it the afternoon before we got waves to feel it out. It was a hefty piece of water but some sick waves to be had. We woke the following day to a bitterly cold offshore ocean. On the first site, we could see that there were some sick ones coming through, and the froth was rising.
On my first wave, this lump popped up out in the ocean, and Tommy asked if I wanted it. I immediately said yes, and we slung for this chuck of thick black ocean, and we came flying into it. I let go of the rope, and this thing just unloaded, and I stood through this thing freaking. I popped up next to Feastie shooting and had adrenalin pumping and looked at him, and he said, ‘Nup, you weren’t in it’. I was like, what do you mean! Baffled and grabbed the rope to head out again. We went out and got another one. It was not as good as the first, but still sick and looked to Feastie again. He said, “You’ve got to play with it'“. We went back out, and I was laughing with Tommy saying, how’s that guy in the safety of the channel and telling us to play with it. At that moment, I thought, play with it, alright then and decided to take his advice. The next waves were mental. Tried to do these kick stalls down the bottom of these beasts on the ledge and was just getting drawn up into these throaty caverns. It was mental. Tommy turns soon after. It takes a bit of a moment and a decision to want to surf this joint. Tommy apprehensively grabbed the rope, but after a warm-up wave and us nutting it out, he was pulling up under some heaving left tubes with no hands and charged the afternoon. It was a mental session and one that I will never forget. The waves were crazy, and the crew were epic.
With the sun going down, we headed back for shore. It was a magic afternoon, and on the way in, I was lucky enough to see a humpback whale and jumped in with the gopro to cap off a sick afternoon. This was such an epic mission with good friends and our families. The wave is mental. It’s a heaving left barrel that is like nothing I’ve seen. It’s a wave that demands respect, and it is hard to get in the barrel without getting chomping.
All photos Kim Feast
