"Don't go anywhere near it!"
Although Dylan Graves is of middle age, a stately forty years old, he’s no liver-spotted man, but an example of who we can be if we don’t fall into the trap of remaining in our velvet cages of couch, device, home.
The adventures of Puerto Rican Dylan Graves in his pursuit of the strangest waves on earth have been assiduously documented on BeachGrit, a website that may be counted as Graves’ biggest fan even if there exists no reciprocity of feeling, first in his ongoing series Weird Waves and, now, as he traverses the world solo.
Click here, here, here, here and here.
And here.
Here, too.
In his latest instalment, Dylan Graves joins the Australian surfer Anthony Walsh, in the otherwise waveless Kimberley region of Western Australia, almost three k clicks north of Perth, London to Moscow sorta distance, a hot and wild hellhole for the most unless you’re riding in a shiny Landcruiser and you got money and camping gear to burn.
No waves for the most ’cause the continental shelf along the Kimberley coast is wide and gradual.
The pair attempt something that has never been done: riding a tidal bore so violent it has earned a reputation among locals, some actual indigenous locals, as one of the coast’s most treacherous natural phenomena.
The wave they chase s born of geography and tidal physics. Along the Kimberley coast, the Indian Ocean forces wild volumes of water in and out of King Sound, a vast inlet whose constricted channels compress that energy into something resembling a moving wall.
In the nearby Talbot Bay, the effect is so extreme that the tide effectively becomes a river, surging through tight sandstone cliffs in a phenomenon known locally as the Horizontal Falls — one of the more disorienting sights in Australian nature.
What Graves and Walsh found was something beyond their expectations, and their expectations were not modest.
Walsh described the experience as dropping into a small, fast beach break while a Teahupo’o-sized wall detonated immediately behind him. On one wipeout, the current pinned him underwater for 38 seconds.
That number means nothing until you try it yourself.
The viewer is invited to join Anthony Walsh underwater. Count. At ten seconds you’re fine. At twenty you’re aware of your lungs. At thirty you’re negotiating. At 38 you’re scooping in lungfuls. And that’s on the couch, not striking for daylight.
Essential viewing, natch, and Dylan Graves’ best yet.
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Its like those cunt coffey sisters up in the kimberly last year posting shit about their adventure , except all the bits of being scared shitless crying vomiting out of fear and having to be rescued or helped by everyone with experiance , you think that joint is a joke you will end up dead real fast.
I have been out there fishing tons of times and take it from some cunt that actualy knows , not one cunt from “one arm point” surfs , they maybe wild mad pissed cunts but they aint stupid.
I attempted to alert the Graves team about this nutty fucking place a couple of years back:
https://whirlpool-scotland.co.uk/
9m waves at times.
this place in the Kimberlies looks pretty crazy though, checking now.
Its the “Kimberly” not kimberlies
so many ‘heres’, i’m confused…
Cable Beach up Broome way is a decent wave on its day. Well it was 50 years back last time I chugged into town.
Ha…makes Jamie O’s throw down at Waimea Bay gutter to near drowning drag out in 12ft shore break look like child’s play.
That’s a crazy adventure. You wouldn’t even want to be in the water there, let alone on the receiving end of a flogging of such inestimable and potentially fatal extremity. There’d be all kinds of toothy things lurking in the lee of that current waiting for food to be transported into their waiting jaws. Ughhhhh.
Walsh is the man to do it. He’s a fucking freak of the kind that appears normal until you put him amongst heavy water.
Years ago I was working up in the desert, not too far from the Kimberly, when I saw a swell on its way to a certain hardcore reef a days drive to the South. I’d been going flat out stacking cash , doing six week stints working ten hour days, then a week off before another six week swing. On my week off I’d had to go to a wedding in Perth and didn’t get in the water. So effectively over three months without surfing, during which time all I did was build a remote mine all day and suck piss all night. Which is somehow both way more fun and way more fucken trying than it looks on paper.
So sorted it with the work crew and bailed. Driving about ten hours through empty desert dodging Roos, cattle and wedgetailed eagles on dead straight road,. No towns, no people except the odd eighteen wheeler road train barrelling through the landscape.
I arrived bent and buckled, and unloaded my beer-soaked carcass into the coastal scrub of a dreamy left bluff on a sheep station, just down the coast from the targeted wave that I’d hit in the morning. With a couple of hours of light left, I went for a warm up paddle at the wave in front. There was no one around save a lone goofyfoot ripping the wave on his own. It turned out to be Anthony Walsh who’d also came for the impending swell.
The forecast swell hadn’t filled in and yet even the fun head high reef waves were a bit much for me. Struggling to get to my feet, no rhythm. Getting as rinsed as possible by these easy waves. We chatted between sets and Walsh told me he’d flown from fucking Mexico for this swell! I thought I’d come a fair way…..
Apparently he’d been surfing all these epic right points somewhere there. This is before I’d heard of Salina Cruz or any of that shit. He raved about the quality and quantity of the points there and as someone from Lennox I reckoned he’d be the man to ask about a good right point.
Walshy was surfing well on that little wave but the next morning was an entirely different animal. I drove up there at first light and my guts started churning as the dawn revealed heavy, heavy lines of powerful deep ocean swell unloading on perhaps the most intimidating reef I’ve ever surfed. This place is proper out of control when it’s doing its thing. Jack Robinson and co make it look semi-manageable but believe me it’s not. Terrifying is not too strong a word if you’re not capable or confident. Of which I was neither.
Walshy was cool and calm despite the excitement in the dusty carpark as I nervously slinked into my wetsuit. Wondering how and why I’d put myself in such a predicament as to be about to surf a truly death defying wave after basically not surfing for three months. He ran down to the lagoon and paddled out , I took as long as I could before making my way.
The thing about this joint is that just the paddle out can be hectic. People have died surfing the wave itself but it’s not unknown to get worked just trying to reach the lineup through the narrow paddle out between what is mostly two different sections of the reef. The entire Indian focuses its energy on this one little keyhole window delineating the couple of hundred metres of safe lagoon and the outside ocean. I’ve even heard a story of a World Champion surfer in his prime coming here and getting fucked up with a dislocated shoulder before even getting out the back. Right here where I was now paddling.
My arms were already tired and I was out of breath as I came closer to the reef. I started getting anxious. Beyond anxious. For the first time in my surfing life I even started to panic. Rapid, heaving lungfuls of air, my mind not operating with any rationality . Instead of calming myself and waiting for a break in the swells, I kept paddling into the danger zone. Not thinking at all. Just as I got to the most dangerous spot on the entire reef a monstrous set marched from the depths. Now I was in full freak mode. All hope and reason abandoned. I fully assumed I was doomed as millions of litres of lip unloaded straight upon me whilst I just rolled off my board and copped it sweet on the head.
And then the maelstrom passed, I was unscathed and the ocean was flat. The water still churned ferociously but the set was over. I got on my bloated little beer-belly and sprint paddled into the safety of the deep water out the back. Regained my breath and the scattered remains of my composure and caught a few waves.
After a while I came unstuck and snapped the 6’7” I was riding. But not before witnessing Walshy surfing like a fucking madman on those heavy, heavy waves. I swam back to shore feeling almost grateful that my session was over. From the carpark I watched Walshy continue to surf like the waves had no consequences whatsoever. I picked up my camera just in time to capture this flogging he got on a beast. Despite charging into it, he lost his footing at the bottom, went over the handlebars and got fully ragdolled. Snapping his board.
A few minutes later and he’s bounded up the rocks, into the carpark, grabbed another board and was straight back out there with a huge grin on his face.
These photos don’t do justice to the enmity of this wave. It’s serious.
The man is a fucking freak. Nice fella though.
https://youtu.be/nZ58lTMQ16k?si=d4VKIrq1tj97BDVf
the fear is real. More detail bruz keep ’em coming
Great read….and you’re right, Anthony is super cool.
One of the funniest things about him is he never wears shoes, ever….even in the most crazy of terrains.
one of the best pipe photos I’ve ever seen was of Anthony, shot by Will Weaver.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8kB4kHFRNP/
wow you went to Tombies……
lol
Brutus : “ Hey…I’ve been to Tombies too you know!”
There, there, mate.
Nice shots, Blowie. That’s a lot of wave. Fuxken hell.
I was not impressed initially it looked barely overhead and then Walshy took that huge one holy jeez that wave is sketchy af
That wave looks sketchier than a Tyler post heat interview.
Some people do crazy things and some people are just crazy. That hold down was bonkers.
38 seconds bro that’s quite a hold down
So is this the 1578ft wave ?
Finally we got the YouTube video of it. Now it’s real
I can see there being a few pople who over-estimate their waterman credentials and go out to surf this wave – and end up dead.
So you haven’t surfed it?
this thing maybe not as much being sooooo effing remote?
Wouldn’t mind taking Gina and a large gas stove out there on a boat. Sic day
Plenty of wildlife out there to make things even more interesting.
This place has all the reasons why I would never go in.
Back in the day when it wasn’t so crowded it was way bigger and more consistent.