"We found the nose of one of Slater's boards two-and-a half-kilometres down the beach!”
The eleven-time champ Kelly Slater is in a race against time as he hustles to make it to Tahiti for what may be his last ever contest at Teahupoo, the waiting period beginning in only two days.
Slater, who is fifty-one, joined the conga line of tube-wranglers, which included popular surf vloggers Nathan Florence and Jamie O’Brien, to the Skeleton Coast wave called Donkey Bay or, more colourfully, “The Namibian Rickshaw.”
The popular WSL commentator Strider Wasilewski, who also made the sixty-hour journey from Los Angeles, described it as “the craziest longest most barreling wave ever and a very satisfied, adrenaline filled soul! The freedom of the desert and the beat down of my body, the greatest equalizer ever, thank you surfing. BTW, this wave is really hard to ride and very heavy, I don’t recomend going unless you are in amazing surf shape and an excellent surfer.”
View this post on Instagram
Slater said he destroyed three boards in one session at the joint and when he asked if he enjoyed Donkey Bay said “it donked me yesterday.”
View this post on Instagram
Of course, even in his sixth decade Slater remains one of the sport’s best tuberiders, and his form, unsurprisingly, was demonstrably sharp.
View this post on Instagram
Slater’s record at Teahupoo, meanwhile, is otherworldly, eighteen events for seven finals and five wins with an average…average… heat total of 16.29.