OF PERFECT WAVES AND THEIR KEEPERS
A wave of anxiety washed over me as I boarded the plane and took in my surroundings. When I first learned how to get to the undisclosed wave I was en route to, I was told that as recently as last year, flights to the area had as few as 10 passengers. This time, however, the 160-passenger airplane was nearly a third filled with other anxious members of “the tribe.”
The increased attendance made things uncomfortable for a few reasons. Most obviously, any dreams of getting the flawless, sand-bottom pointbreak without crowds were now dashed, which everyone boarding the aircraft was realizing in real time. Then there was the fact that the location of this wave was supposedly a secret, and I hoped that no one would inquire as to how I learned where to find it. (Were the other surfers veterans of the wave, wondering who breached protocol to share the secret with me? Or were they just as concerned with being exposed as outsiders themselves?)
On a connecting flight from a small airport, I realized that this swell had also attracted some of surfing’s best mysto wave chasers. Greg Long, Ian Walsh, Natxo Gonzalez, Aritz Aranburu
