A trip of a lifetime.

Being a bloke who likes the world of shooting big waves I couldn’t resist the idea of shooting eight of the best Aussie juniors surfing one incredible day back in my old haunts of South Australia.

So I contacted Steve Ready at Surfing South Australia to get the green light & all was set.

Weeks of waiting & suddenly the swell horizon started to show. Watching the swell charts all the right variables showed a great opportunity that we were going to see a swell event of epic proportions. The winds were right, the swell was big & the periods were huge. The Fantastic Intense Wave Event was a green light.

The surfers arrived the day before where I could conduct various interviews & then there was a safety briefing via Steve Ready & ex pro surfer Toby Martin.

6 am we all meet at the Adelaide Airport for a flight to our destination – by 8.45 we were met by organizers & whisked away down to the bay for us to board a flotilla of boats to be ferried out to the bombie, which is about 4ks out to sea.

There were sets that poured into the bay of which is normally flat so we knew that it was going to be big.

Quiet simply the surf was enormous – it was sunny – off shore & an amazing site to be seen. Really the frame grabs were enough for you to be able understand the magnitude of what I was shooting. I knew this was history in the making.

The guys were surfing in waves that were as big as you could get them into.
I don’t think any of these blokes had surfed anything bigger.
It was absolutely EPIC day, one of the best in my mind.

Thanks to Jeff Shmucker, Steve Ready, Andrew Blanchard, Ben Evennett, Eamon Hanna, Steve Edwards & Mark Harris for making these two days so successful.

Fantastic Dayz – Day 2

After a rather big night at the local pub after viewing all my video rushes from that momentous day we were up at 6 am to see if there was anything else in store for the surfers that were still left.

Most of the competing surfers flew out on a charted flight the night before so there was only couple of the locals – some of the organizers – Teale Vander & big wave legend Dylan Longbottom.

The swell was still there although it looked as if it dropped a bit. The weather was grey but from the distance you could see it was still pumping.

So out we went – Jeff Shmucker did the driving of his boat for me to shoot & his son Joshiah decided to give his injured ankle a rest & drove the local boy 17 year old Sam Ford & Dylan Longbottom into what was 6 to 12 feet bombs.

Sam was a natural & looks to have the place wired & gets the bomb set of the day – fully pitted on a 12-foot face of glory.

Dylan every time he got out there was sitting in barrels to avoid the rainsqualls.

We were about to pack it due to the rain – boards back on the boat & camera placed in the bag when in the distance we saw some blue sky. Within 10 minutes the clouds parted & sun shone though like god had decided to really show how beautiful this place is.

Rainbows & barrels prevailed as we sucked it all up as two of the best days of our lives were now complete.

Thanks to Jeff Shmucker, Steve Ready, Andrew Blanchard, Ben Evennett, Eamon Hanna, Steve Edwards & Mark Harris for making these two days so successful.


A full edit of this event will be screened on the BIG SCREEN in this years ASMF touring in late October & November 09. asmf.net.au

Shot by Tim Bonython
Location: South Australia