yes, and look how close his gear is... if only he had the awareness to swim towards his kit, rather than away from it, it would not have ended up getting a little cosmetic damage on the rocks
Well done guys is that first photo you Kaleb?
Houston well done for getting out there mate that looked like you are riding a freight trains
Nice works Boys
Great thing about BOL it's really just a srtoll getting out through the channel.
I'll leave it up to Greville to explain how he got home.
Still looks ok Houston...nothing a bit of sail tape wont fix ....glad your ok mate...when you look at that picture of you going down that wave face I bet your thinking it was all worth it
Houstons second pic shows the area known as No Mans Land(NoMaLand) The white water is mast high, if you end up down there you are on your own, no man will come to help you.
I'll leave it up to Greville to explain how he got home. Heres a pic of him heading out, this is what his rig looks like if anyone happens to find it!!
It all started on the drive over. Hit Anvers chocolate house and the car started playing up. Got to the top of the hill then the clutch went...Fark Nissans!!! Cheers to Ant for coming back to pick me up. The first hint I should have turned around!!
So
Stood around looking at the break at BOL talking shop with Pottsy's words ringing in my head, 'that **** down there, you don't want to be there, if you end up there your dead.' (hint 2)
Went for a wander and it was blowing its fricken head off. Too much for me (hint 3)
But,
I headed out, I'm no longer a BOL virgin!! I wanted to go out a bit to get a good angle to come back in to have a good look at the waves...
Then,
My sail disintegrated the boom head shattered and my board decided to take a 2.5km stroll by itself to the next bay.
So sitting pretty in the water looking at the shore thinking hmm. I did the only thing I could do. Swam towards the coast that looked like white water hell!! Only took about 45mins to get close to shore then came the tricky part.
Had to work out a plan, found a nice little edge to the nasty **** picked my timing and went in on the back of a monster. Cue getting worked, grabbing bull kelp, breathing when my head is above water, swimming grabbing bull kelp rinse and repeat. Lucky for me it was over in a flash, managed to clamber onto the closet solid object and climbed up it like a spider on a wall.
So the moral to the story. Stay away from the stuff that people say might kill you, it isn't worth testing your luck. Listen to the number of hints you get, if you get more than 2 it probably isn't going to end well.
But there is a shining light to the story.
I found my board!! 6 small chips out of the coating on a rock beach 3 hours later down wind!!! - Stoked.
To top off the weekend I managed to get zapped by a cow electric fence across the guts leaning over to put my board down after finding it!!! Cue the world reminding me that I am one lucky son of biatch!!
That little rocky beach Greville is talking about is actually Nettleys about 2kms up the coast from BOL
Well done mate for having a go....gutsy.......or maybe stupid...... remember I'm your coach
It is becoming increasingly harder to really attack BOL, you used to be able to charge from deep and bash the crap out of the pocket as it bowls up. There is so much bull kelp out there that you find yourself not reading the wave and timing your attack but looking at the water and initiating a drawn out turn so your not running into bull kelp as the wave pitches. The other problem is that the kelp makes the wave do all sorts of horrid things at times.
Most wavering was done just out on the face, trying to stay away from the pocket as it dredged solid lumps of kelp. However, even ehy you think your safely out on the face the ugly kelp moster turns the wave it something not quite predictable.
The first image below shows me coming out of a lazy top turn well out on the face, I then forget about cutting back as all of a sudden I see a little ledge build in the face, so I straighten out and start to power down wind only to find that the wave has just stepped vertical and I'm free falling into kelp infested water, luckily I managed to stay upright only to watch the wave start to break from the bottom up with multiple lips throwing out, look closely and you can see them on the wave. But quite strangely as the multiple waves within the wave start to break they then magically dissapear and turn back into one face that goes pretty dam sqaure. What a strange beast the Back of Lighthouse is.
You guys are nuts!
Bloody mad Tassies is all I can say, big kahunas!
And the red bull storm chase isnt there because?
Looks like a great adventure sorry 2 here about the carnage but at least every one didnt trash there gear so not bad really looks cold but hey you dont get those conditions on a warm sunny day that would be 2 easy great storeys and photos
Wow guys, you really put the extreme into windsurfing.
Awesome to watch the crazy-ness you hit. Great pics/footage - bring on more!
Buzzy you make it look so easy. The wave actually looks a lot nicer in the video then the photo's. Anthonnnyyyyy do you have any sails left, better get onto selling more lettuces this week. And Greville if your planning on going out in that stuff I think I'd upgrade the gear a little more regularly Pottsy you looked so relaxed out there, so relaxed to do tricks out there, too easy for you, I think you'd better give Shipsterns ago if it's sailable.
Thanks Kazza i would agree, the worst part of all the only old piece of kit was the sail. Everything else less than 12months old. Looking at the carnage in the water before I let it all go the boom head was the criticle point once that broke I was rooted.
Wow, impressive stuff. Great reports and photos. Glad you got out in 1 piece Hamish even if your gear didn't. That sounded pretty scary. Well done everyone top stuff.