20-Second Tubes (AGAIN)! Soli Bailey, Ian Crane, Brett Barley and Sarah Baum Score Empty Perfection
Hands down. The best left point I've ever seen. I haven't been to Namibia, but I imagine it's very similar. To have that feeling again at the new place was just crazy. Every wave was doing the same thing. It was like a machine. Where am I? Oh my God! I am Alan van Gysen.
I'm a Surf Photographer that for the last 25 years has been exploring and spending time in Africa. Africa as a continent is so unique because you know, we've got some of the oldest deserts on the planet. They're these huge bodies of sand and as soon as wind blows that sand or you know, oceans move that sand, suddenly you've got a great recipe for waves and action with sand. Something about Africa with the amount of sand as well as the fact that it hasn't really been explored that well at all, you know, just opens up the door for so much opportunity here at the moment. In recent years since 2017, I've made it a, a trek to go to Skeleton Bay and so I've been there four times now and that's become kind of my like secondary home away from home. Uh, one of the most special places that I've ever been.
And so my familiarity with left hand sandbars and sand points is uh, just kind of my favorite thing in surfing. Like there's, there's nothing I'd rather track down. There's nothing I'd rather get invited on. For me it's like the ultimate. And so to get a call about another one <laugh> that I'd never been to was uh, just very exciting and you know, just left me kind of wondering what it was gonna be like in comparison to what I'd seen elsewhere.
Some of the covers from around the world, Skeleton. Okay, the African Coin Flip. Left and right was here living in the bottom in Cape Town was these swells would travel up from the Atlantic Ocean and just go all the way up the west coast of Africa. And there are just so many lefts and pointbreaks that at with this huge desert. You know, we've got two of the older deserts in the world, the Sahara Desert here and the arm of desert here. And um, just all that sand that blows into the points here with the swell, those two, when they come together, there's just, lets looking back at some of the very early trips that I've done to this area, it's just like you camping, you know, you got your tent, you got your crew and it's just like empty all around. Things change over time and the last time I was here was about 8 or 10 years ago. So yeah,
I'm looking forward to seeing how it might have changed or not changed. Surfers, we one of the first people to travel to new areas before like tourism kicks off or before like things get busy. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing how things are and particularly I wanted to see how the sand is at these points because that's, that's, that's gonna make all the difference. As far as the size. You know, I think we ran down over the last 11 years, 3 comparative swells and I think that this one is at least in that discussion. Yeah, so many other left sand points. So yeah,
I'm pretty excited to see what the crew and I find. You know you'd be waiting for the last two years for a swell of this size to come, you know, you need that right direction. So yeah, it's um, exciting. Looking forward to seeing what we get. Yeah, so we kind of decided okay, let's do it. You know,
so at that point it was just getting the surface plan and getting them to come across and you know, you also wanna have the right people at a place like this, you know, for one there's a majority of lefthanders. Number two is just people that are well traveled and also don't mind camping it and roughing it out in the desert. It's a very harsh environment. Yeah, you just need to be prepared for that. We got a couple days, 3 flights and now we're starting to drive. We saw some crazy looking coastline flying in and <laugh> it just evaporated like all like the travel aches and stressful connections. And now we're here.
Well we're set up at camp swell is slowly starting to fill in. It's very small but this place looks amazing. We've got spots to fish while we wait for the swell. We're waiting for Soli, Sarah to get here I guess they get in this afternoon and then have to get a ride out to our campsite. I actually had no idea we were even camping. I was like okay cool. Like we might stay in a little cabin or something And then a few of the guys got ahold of me just before coming. They're like, oh okay, make sure you bring your sleeping bag and your and your pillow in.
I was like wait, what? Um, <laugh>. So I was like pretty shook. But you know, I love camping. I think this is like as rural as it gets, like it looks like Mars behind us. You know, we're not always gonna be in five star hotels so to be able to live off the grid for a little while is perfect. I love it. Woke up in the tent a little wet but uh, first sets of the trip kind of starting to pour through now it was pretty flat yesterday when we rolled up to camp, but that's a real wave right there. If we weren't hunting like the wave of our life this swell like that looks super fun If you pull up on any surf trip and find waves like that looks fun. Yeah, it's at least at a point now where I'm like, shoot,
I could, I want to go surf. Finally we get to get in the water, just going left for a week. Hell yeah. Today is the biggest day of the swell so we're hoping we get a window. So we're it is what, 4:30AM now we're gonna hop in the cars and go at least lay eyes on it. So.
Attack <laugh>, push harder Ian. Push harder. This is the most bittersweet moment of my life. We are standing on like however long of a sand point, it's bombing, it's super heavy, but the wind's onshore. It's not completely undoable but it's pretty undoable. The sand curves, so we're gonna see if we can like find like a little corner that's more doable.
It just looks like it gets bigger the further we go this way too. Let's go look. And we've just got out to the, the big strip. Unfortunately we kind of got the low down on the forecast that today was gonna be on onshore wind. So it was a bit disappointing.
And the real bittersweet thing is that there's like more than enough swell. We just got out here and there's definitely enough swell. It's like six to eight foot the ocean's really sounding heavy and unfortunately the wind's are onshore. So yeah, not really surfable. We're gonna just take a drive back to like the main section and just take a look at it. But the wind's gonna be onshore. You can feel it's quite strong now.
And the more we kept driving the cleaner it got, but the more closed out it's gotten now it's just like, it looks like a beachbreak. It doesn't even look like a pointbreak. There's rights like that one. I mean the double-edged sword of perfect sand points and sandbars is that they change. And so I think that's what's really cool about sand is that it can be really bad for a number of years and then it can be really good and, and so some people may have been there and saw and it was okay and then other people go back and it's just like a completely different wave. And so I think that's what's epic is that because of that, people will always be searching and new waves will always end up popping up or being like reimagined or come back to life. It's hard not to lose confidence when when you see like, you know, onshore winds or.
Um. The swell not there or the banks aren't there, whatever, whatever's going wrong with it, you kind of like start to really get down 'cause you just, you've traveled relentless amount of hours and put all this work in. Everyone's kind of scratching their heads going like "man this gonna be the one that we get skunked on". Very excited. Swell has it peaked yesterday but uh,
I'm just antsy to see what's going on. We've seen a wave reel completely down the point. Offshore wind. Sorry. <Laugh>. Look at that thing. Oh. This is the very bottom. Yeah.
Dude, look at that thing. Look at it. Look at it. Oh look at the next one. Look at the white water on the next one. Hey should. We, should we go for a drive up there.
Before we like a hundred percent? Yeah. Dude that is grinding. Hey that's it's straight up grinding. Yeah. Let's, it's happened. We we're on. Gone from down in the dumps, back up as usual. <Laugh>. We got like just one glimpse of like two waves but they were flawless.
We're here, we're alone. This is Maps To Nowhere. This is what it's all about. So excited. Get the boards quickly. Ready. It's like the takeoffs right here.
Hey, I've always wondered. Like oh my god. Growing up on right points, what it'd be like to go left.
Where am I? This is bonkers. First wave. I was like in and out of the tube for 20 seconds. It's ridiculous. I'll fly around the world a hundred times for these projects.
It's crazy man. I was worried it was gonna be too fast for me on my backhand, but it's like the perfect pace. It was just perfect.
I stood up not knowing whether I was gonna have to like huck it or try and read it and it was just flawless. It was like okay this is just like video game mode, like play with it And it did the whole way. It was like first wave of the set but it, I'd just gotten out. I was like, I can't like paddle over this amazing looking wave like I'm going. It like started getting deep down here.
I think it looked like the wave behind it was just psycho the whole way. How many barrels do you get on that one? I don't know. Like five, six. I don't know. Six. I lost count!
What just happened there bro. <laugh>. I can't, It's like up there with some of the, I wanna almost say it again. It might be better than my best waves of my life. What the hell just happened? I was just, it just got heavier and heavier and thicker and thicker the whole way. And then I come out and I was like, I knew I was past you. I was like I gotta show you that I'm still here.
And I was like woo and pulled like came back down and then kind of blew it 'cause I could have got pitted again and like still I pretty much could have still been in it for like a fair bit longer. It was nuts. It's gonna be a crazy few hours. What. Was that? Are you kidding me! Bro. I got shaky leg. Thing didn't stop.
I was like looking to kick out and it'd be like nope. That was the sickest. I think that was the best wave of my life. It's gotta be your longest. That's definitely like the most barreled wave I've ever had. That was so $%^# up. Ian crane just caught a wave from the top of the point.
My lens was literally facing like. There. And he finished the wave like 180 degrees behind me. Took over the top section somehow made it through like three or four incredible sections. Kept going. More barrels. More barrels. I don't know I could, I lost count of how many barrels there were and he kicked out at the end of the closeout. It's just uh, incredible to see a bank,
a sandbank like this again. Just phenomenal to watch. I think I might be done. Coming or are you gonna chill for a sec? I might chill for a sec. Okay. I ended up surfing for four hours and forty minutes and my watch said that I needed sixty two hours to recover from today's surf <laugh>. Yeah. Wow what a day. I mean we're all pretty much wrecked. We pretty much surfed for like six hours.
Relentless current and perfect tubes and no one out. That's all you could ask for. The arms are completely done. We're outta water, we're outta batteries.
We have been barreled off our heads and the trips a success, you know, so it's just a such a awesome feeling to, to kind of come from being a little devastated with onshore yesterday to everyone's super satisfied and like a couple broken boards, a couple broken leashes and a bit of food to be chowed <laugh>. When you get to score that perfection over a sandbar pointbreak like you just have to take in every second because you may never get that again. The waves that we saw and we didn't get to ride and we tried to get into a couple, but low tide was borderline unpaddleable on the best waves. Yeah, I think everyone's got a bit of unfinished business here for sure. It's as heavy as the sand bottom point gets. So amazing to just have the four of us out there so we're all just screaming and cheering each other on and so special 'cause those are the moments that you remember forever.
You know when you get to share them with like your closest friends or family. Yeah, that's pretty much what we live for. I don't know. I remember like the night before the magic day, I'm laying in this little like one man tent. I don't know, I couldn't sleep.
I was just like potentially you could get like the wave of your life tomorrow like, and then we actually got to surf that. And then we came back to our camp and it's just like sunset and we're like making food and the bonfires going and we were cracking beers. It's like <laugh>. I don't know, it was the. Craziest experience of my life for sure.
As surfers we're always chasing more and more and you don't sit in that moment of like how special it is then and there. 'cause you had like, we're not satisfied, we want to come back. But we scored the wave as good as we could have hoped for it.
We all got barreled off our heads and there was no one in the water. You know, this is what surfing is, this is why we all like fell in love with it. Empty lineups and perfect waves. It's the pinnacle of it for me. Sort of gets to the point where you lost for words how special it is.
<Laugh>.
2025-04-07 00:25
