“As soon as Salvador and I came in from the ocean at Cow Bombie, Gracetown, we packed up and hit the road, three hours north to Perth, chasing a swell that was already on the move,” Tim Bonyton tells SURFER.
“The target was Tasmania. A powerful Roaring 40s swell was marching across the Southern Ocean, and the plan was to stay one step ahead of it and intercept it at one of the heaviest waves on the planet: Shipstern Bluff,” the big-wave documentarian continues.
There’s a high art to chasing big waves from one spot to the next. The travel is usually grueling with rushed car rides across vast distances, red-eye flights, and minimal sleep. Somehow, miraculously, to end up at the right spot at the right time, there’s something cosmic and magical about it. And only the most committed can pull it off.
“We arrived in Perth that night, grabbed a few hours’ sleep, and were back at the airport for the 10:00 am direct flight to Hobart. The next morning, the alarm went off at 5:00 am. By 6:00 am, we were down at Margate Marina, meeting our boat captain, Simon Nelson, ready for the run south to Shippies,” Bonython explains.
“Sixty minutes of open ocean lay between us and the Bluff. And as we got closer, the signs were looking very good. The Roaring 40s had delivered. Shipstern Bluff was pretty much pumping. The cliffs, the Southern Ocean and that raw Tasmanian light made for an incredible backdrop as another pulse of the swell unloaded on the reef. After chasing this swell across the country, we’d finally caught it. Two states. Two oceans. One swell. And for the moment, it was all smooth sailing. Now all we had to do was get amongst it.”
And get amongst it they did. Enjoy the latest dispatch from Bonython and his cast of lunatics and hellmen.
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