Lazin’ on a Sunny Afternoon
I’ve been having a good few small sessions recently. Some scary situations as well though.
Underwater Emerald
One of the places I’ve been shooting is quiet a shallow slab that can get pretty darn heavy, as in heaviest waves I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s taken time but I’ve been gradually getting deeper and deeper. I only have the shithouse Canon 10-22mm to shoot with in the water, despite constantly promising myself the 50mm Plastic Fantastic. And the 22mm just isn’t enough for decent channel shooting. That and the fact that I always set the focus for under the lip shooting resulting in mostly out of focus channel shots. Get some balls Paudie.
Out of focus channel shite
You can see that the patch of water just in front of me is perfectly sharp and Shambles is fairly blurry.
Anyway, like I was saying been gradually getting deeper until one pretty spectacular day a few weeks ago when I was right in there.
Admittedly it was a much smaller day than normal but you have to start somewhere. So this gave me confidence to swim that bit deeper on the next bigger day.
It was big but not that massive when I jumped into the water and swam again to the same position I had been during the last session. A few sets came through, I scraped under, and more importantly was much closer whenever the boys caught any.
Shambles
Nothing too bad yet.
In fact Stef Skaj was paddling back out after one wave and as he was going to paddle past I started to say
“Sitting much deeper today man, stoked.”
Before I got a chance a set loomed on the horizon, and I mean loomed. This wave hits and wraps really hard on the bigger sets, so it always looks like the whole sea is about to land on your head.
Now normally I actually enjoy that sprint out to sneak under the lip, it’s a mad feeling racing towards a falling lip. If you get your timing wrong the lip will detonate about a foot in front of you and absolutely trash you, the payoff is when you make it under and the whole wave passes you by in an instant. There’s so much water moving past you it feels like you’ve just been shot out the launch tube of some crazy ass nuclear sub, I usually get rocketed to the surface and come up laughing at the pleasure of making it out the other side unscathed.
Not this time.
I made it under the lip alright, but the wave was so thick it held me back just that bit too long so that I got rolled by the next wave in the set.
I was still in good form though, just let yourself go and ragdoll about, no point fighting it, you only use up your oxygen reserves more quickly. I immediately felt both fins come off, not to worry have my fin savers on.
I came up from this wave to see Danny boy about 5m away, calmly paddling back out to the line-up.
“My fins are after coming off, I’m going back in to put them on.”
No point trying to put them back on in the water, too hard in the impact zone for starters and it’s awkward with the camera attached to wrist as well.
This wave hits a shallow shelf and then goes into a channel of deep water on the far side, then you get to dry land. Not so bad, make it across the channel and your fine.
Because too fairly sizable waves had come through there was a fair bit of water rushing through this channel, so try as I might my feet couldn’t get purchase on the reef and the current swept me back away from the sanctuary of dry land towards this big ass monster dry reef close out at the end of the channel.
At this stage I’d taken about 5 waves on the head, I had lost count quickly, and been rolled all over the reef. Now ragdolling only helps you so much, you’re going to loose your breath sooner or later.
I have stupid-ass Viper fins which basically become dead weights if they come off your feet, so I couldn’t swim anywhere at all. I had just reached the point where I was trying to decide if I should just dump the camera or not and how best to get the fuck out of there when I hear the voice of my saviour.
Dan Skajarowski, I’m still unsure how to pronounce your surname but I owe you buddy. Danny had heard me saying that my fins had come off and then watched me get dragged down to the next peak and had followed me down.
I was pretty dazed at this stage so Dan had to drag me onto his bodyboard and tow me out the back on the way scraping under the lip of two more nutso waves. Although at this stage every wave was a monster to me.
We eventually made it out and I gave the camera to Dan while I got my fins back on. My the time we’d finished we had drifted a good 300m away from the rest of the boys.
I gradually made my way back to the lads and sheepishly sat way out on the shoulder for most of the rest of the session.
I was pretty much over it at this stage, which was annoying because it was only about 20 minutes into the session.
Mine wasn’t the worst story of the day though, my own personal lifeguard Dan shattered his kneecap later on in the session and had to get airlifted out of their. He’s since had all sorts of crazy shot put into replace/reconstruct the knee and he’s on the road to recovery.
All the best Danny Boy, and thanks again.
For more on Danny’s story and more shots from the session, check out the next issue of 360
