| Who blew up: |
| 1. James Taylor |
| James is an interesting guy with very diverse interests. He’s a photographer, a spear-fisherman, a kite surfer and a big wave surfer. He also does a bit of modelling from time to time (check out our fashion feature in the next issue of theBOMBsurf). This weekend though his interests were squarely focussed on Dungeons having missed the warm up paddle day 10 days ago because of a photographic assignment. Sunday dawned absolutely perfect and the big wave crew were frothing. All the guys were out there early. The waves were huge and perfect. According to James the waves were as big, if not bigger than last years Red Bull (20-30ft) only more perfect. Anyway James paddled into an absolute behemoth of a wave early this morning. He made the drop, bottom turned and then got caught behind the section. Greg Long reckons that it was the biggest wave ever paddled into anywhere in the world! That’s a huge claim and we haven’t seen the photos yet, but we’ll take Greg’s word for it. |
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| 2. Reinhardt Fourie |
| Reinhardt is one of the Capes dedicated big wave riders. He trains year round so that when the big swells hit he’s on it. On Tuesday last week he had a chance to put that training to good use. He got dusted on a huge wave at Dungeons. Before his tow partner Gig Celliers could recover him the next one washed over him. He took 3-4 more on the head before disappearing completely. The guys freaked, understandably. If you lose someone for more than 4-5 minutes the chances of getting them back alive are slim. Because of the huge waves and crazy volume of water moving around Reinhardt found himself being washed across towards Chapman's Peak in a very strong rip. The super strong current had moved him quickly away from where the skis were busy looking for him. Realising his predicament and that he could no longer rely on the PWC’s to rescue him he resolved to rescue himself. This involved swimming across the Chapman's Peak current and back into the inshore current that runs along the base of the Sentinel into Hout Bay. Because of the size of the waves crashing into the cliffs there is no way you can go ashore there. So he just swam with the current into the bay looking for a suitable place. He was recovered just as he was about to make landfall 2km from where he took off on the wave and about 45 mins later. If that had happened to someone who is not as cool or as fit as Reinhardt this story may well have had a different ending. |
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| 3. Beyrick de Vries, Davey Brand and Slade Prestwich |
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These guys all get a nod for their performance at the Quik King of the Groms this weekend. The conditions were super gnarly. With a strong 6-8ft groundswell meeting a ferocious North Easter. Beyrick and Davey both won their divisions as well as the series in the U20 and U16 divisions respectively. Slade won the Resolution Health Tube Masters Award and came 3rd in the U20 division. Not bad for a kid who is 14! In conditions like that it all boils down to who wants it the most and who charges the hardest. These guys all went balls to the wall. Nice one!
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| And who blew it? |
3. Kelly Cestari |
| Kelly is a prolific and talented contributor to theBOMBsurf. Last week he sent us a mail saying he was thinking of going down to do a bit of shooting in CT and what did we think? We thought about it for about 3 seconds and weighed it up. Durban is going to be 3’ and onshore for a week, CT is going to be 15-30’ and offshore for a week ... Um ja we think you’d better go. When we got the call this am to say Dungeons was 30’ and perfect we immediately contacted Kelly to find out where he was shooting from. “ Um, (big pause) I’m still in DBN... (sigh)...” Eish! We thinks too much time with theBOMBshell. |
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| 2. Craig Kolesky. |
| Craig is relatively new to shooting the whole Big Wave scene, but recently he’s been on a mission capturing some amazing big wave footage. He really has been at the forefront of documenting some of the most amazing sessions to go down in recent history. That said while Dungeons turned purple today Craig was in Mauritius shooting kiteboarding on a gig he ‘d committed to ages ago. Damn, don’t you hate not having that ‘subject to better offer’ clause in our work agreement. We contacted him on skype and he was so bummed there was just static down the line...and then the sound of things breaking. |
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| 1. Nic Bothma and Brenton Geach |
| These two hardened lensemen haven’t missed a swell at Dungeons in the last 10 years. They are always on it. The first to arrive at the docks and the last to get off the boat, usually with the shots. They have been out in wind and rain, massive swells, near drownings, lost at seas, you name it they’ve seen it all. Largely through their lenses we’ve been able to see it too. Over the last 10 years Dungeons has slowly but surely inched itself into the limelight of the world big wave surfing community. Through the massive efforts of Red Bull over the last decade and in conjuction with guys like Nic and Brenton the world has been able to appreciate just how gnarly Dungeons really is and just how hard the surfers go that surf it. So when the day of the frikken decade goes off and they are not there you have to scratch your head. In fairness to them both they were on BOMBsurf business. Nic was uploading images and Brenton was getting a shot for us at the Crayfish Factory (see the climate change feature in our next issue) so they missed their customary ride on Spooner’s boat. Eish! Nic salvaged some dignity by quickly hiking over the Sentinel and shooting from the land (amazing images to follow). Either way they missed the session of the decade (so far) at Dungeons and that’s got to hurt. |
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