Day 04 Surfing

Brendan is about to pay the price for not riding a bigger board

Nick pulls into the inside section and came out

Randy casually leans into another perfect one at Slabatha

Andrew charging one of the bigger waves of the day

Randy on a near perfect one at Slabatha

Burgerworld looking pretty good from the boat

By Day four we were starting to have things figured out. When we heard the anchor I didn't get right up out of bed cause it usually meant we had at least an hour before we were anchored again and surfing. When we did anchor for the day, Carrick anchored us right near a wave called Burgerworlds. It is called that because it's usually a slopey wave that gets worse the larger the swell. But when the swell is dropping or is in a transition period, Burgerworlds is a fun rippable wave. The photo above is what we awoke to the first morning we were there. It was still a little big for it to break properly, and Randy and Carrick mentioned a slab type wave on the back side of this island. Frank, Nick, Randy, Andrew, myself and Bear all loaded up and drove around to have a look. From afar, it doens't look like there should be a wave in there - or at least one you'd like to ride. But, they've been doing this for a long time and Bear knew right where to go to have a look. He drove the speedboat right up to break in the reef and we all watched in awe as three waves peeled past.
Brendan and Andrew got right on it, paddled right over into the lineup and proceded to start catching waves. Randy was close behind and before long Frank and Nick were out as well. Andrew was going for just about any wave he could catch. He took off on a few bigger ones and was the first one to get caught inside. Bear and I watched closely as he was drug across the inside reef. He eventually made his way back out to the boat to catch his breath and told us it really wasn't as bad as he expected.
After about an hour or so Frank, Randy and Andrew had made their way over to the boat. Nick and Andrew were left out there for us to yell at and harrass if they weren't going on the biggest waves that came through. Nick took off on a medium size one, but stuck with it through the inside and pulled into what looked like a giant tube from the back. (See photo above) Brendan missed the first wave of a set that had started to come through. He was determined to get at least one wave so he paddled over the second and started stroking as hard as he could to get the third wave. It turns out he could have used a little bigger board as he had a hard time making it into the wave and got a pretty good beat down for his effort. (See photo above) He came up smiling...
Everyone had had enough of Slabatha (as Andrew called it) for the day.
We went back to the boat and had a nice breakfast. We sat and watched waves break at Burgers but nobody was very anxious to have a go. I thought it would be a good idea to paddle over to the island from the boat. I figured we'd probably surf Slabatha again the next morning and it might be better if I shot it from the beach because of the light. As soon as I hopped off the boat and got about half way across I started to feel like sharkbait. The water was really deep looking and I was all by myself. I was excited to step my feet into the sand and found a stop where they could drive the boat right up to the beach without hitting the reef. I walked around on the beach a little bit and noticed a few canoes parked in the bushes. I didn't realize people lived on that small island and wasn't sure how they'd receive me so I paddled back.