"It was like in a movie. I was completely out of air and I was still swimming to the top. I can't believe I made it."
Ben Gravy is a high-end intermediate surfer from New Jersey whose pivot from drinking to vlogging saved him, he says, from a life as a drunk.
“I drank like a fish,” says a man who now pays his bills promptly and who owns a title-free automobile.
As long-time fans of the novelty wave maestro but wary of falling for his skilful headlines, we were initially sceptical of his latest edit, “Nightmare Wipe Out Scenario 20 Second Hold Down.”
But, reader, this is better than being manipulated pleasurably by the hand of a woman with tawny-browny hair and plump-thighed legs.
The edit doesn’t mess around.
In the opening scene, Ben Gravy staggers through the beach car park as a camera operator yells,
“Did you almost die out there? I filmed the whole thing! Dude, you had less than a second to catch your breath before that second wave came on top of you!”
Gravy chokes back the tears.
“I’m not kidding. It was black dark and I’m trying to look around. It was like in a movie. All that stuff you hear people talking about. It was dark and I was completely out of air and I was still swimming to the top. I can’t believe I made it to the top.”
Harrowing, essential, life-changing.
As Gravy writes in the liner notes,
“I broke my rule in Hawaii & I went surfing on the last day of the trip,” writes Gravy. “It was especially gnarly, because it was the first day of the Eddie swell & the surf was rising fast. Waimea Bay was definitely the biggest I’ve ever surfed it & I experienced what is by far the scariest wipe out of my life, accompanied by a 20 second hold down. I’m very happy to be here still living on Earth.”