"It looks like one of those crazy waves you see in the Caribbean. Two waves come together and it makes a solid eight-foot vert quarter-pipe…"
Five months since state and federal officials found evidence of brain-eating amoeba at the BSR cable park, the famous wave pool has re-opened, at least to media (regular folks can swing by on Friday), with a million-and-a-half dollar water filter and a deadly new wedge called ‘Freak Peak’.
The commentator and podcaster Chris Coté was one of the first to ride in the new filtered water, with the new wedge, and says after a day-and-a-half in the tank he felt as if he’d been on a ten-day surf trip.
“I’m sore, I’m tired, surfed out and stoked. It’s ridiculous, ridiculously fun,” he says.
Coté was there to broadcast from the deck overlooking the pool. It’s part of a PR push to reassure people, who might’ve become squeamish after New Jersey surfer Fabrizio Stabile died as a result of complications from Naegleria fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba, after riding the Waco pool, that you ain’t gonna die for a few waves.
“It’s truly a dream. You can sit out and there and surf for half an hour on a Lowers’-style right, then surf for half an hour on a Lowers’-style left and then you can, literally, call up the guy controlling the wave, this dude named Brian, just hold your arms up like an O, and he sends you a barrel.”
Still, “I would’ve gone either way,” says Coté. “We showed up and the water was nice and clear. I’d heard before that the water was slippery and I was mentally prepared for that, but it felt totally normal.”
The wave?
“It’s truly a dream. You can sit out and there and surf for half an hour on a Lowers’-style right, then surf for half an hour on a Lowers’-style left and then you can, literally, call up the guy controlling the wave, this dude named Brian, just hold your arms up like an O, and he sends you a barrel. It’s crazy how fast it all is. I mean, how many waves did I catch? You catch a wave and by the time you get back to the takeoff there’s another set coming. There’s no wait. You get back out there and you keep going. If someone falls you turn around and go. You end up catching dozens of waves. Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, who knows? And it depends on the setting. The barrel is a one-wave set, so it comes every minute or two, then there’s the three-wave sets and if you’re surfing with a couple of friends, you’re going in full rotation. You never sit up. You keep catching waves over and over.”
“If you’re surfing with a couple of friends, you’re going in full rotation. You never sit up. You keep catching waves over and over.”
As for the Freak Peak, “It looks like one of those crazy waves you see in the Caribbean or at the Newport Wedge. Two waves come together and it makes a solid eight-foot vert quarter-pipe looking thing. We didn’t even miss with it. It’s so gnarly looking. There’s a lot of punch in those waves and it’s shallow so it’s not like you’re carefree. You still have to mind yourself. Everyone we surfed with got slammed at least once. It’s not a joke. It’s powerful enough to get your juices flowing.”
I ask Coté, who has ridden Kelly’s pool, which he prefers.
“Kelly’s wave is perfect but it’s a finite resource. You’ve felt the pressure. It’s so perfect but there’s only so many opportunity. But at Waco there’s no pressure. You can have forty, five reps a day. At the Ranch, maybe twelve.”
Listen to Coté’s podcast from Waco here!
(And no photos yet, but the photographer Peter Taras has a couple from media day that are very pretty.)
