"Just come on over, there's been waves every day!"

The tone of the message was chipper but the reply required some tact. After all, as every surfer knows, there are waves and then there are waves, and for this trip we most definitely sought the latter. While it sounds awfully haughty, only the best would do. So we gave our non-surfing island contact a discrete explanation on the subtleties of wave quality, and went back to watching the weather patterns.

Twice we'd almost pulled the trigger on this trip, but both times a duck would fall out of line: the storm would be downgraded or the forecast winds would change. Everyone grew weary of last minute no shows, yet we grimly held tight while our island connection grew increasingly frustrated – there'd been waves every day!

The trip was a combined project between Swellnet, photographer Ed Sloane, Rip Curl, and the island tourism board. Each had a role to play and ours was to keep an eye on successive Southern Ocean storms, follow their track, and then predict the outcome.

Late last month a promising storm appeared on the model runs, all parties were notified and like generals before battle they were given six hourly updates. It was late in the season, there'd be little chance of another swell after this one, but each directive reported it holding true to early predictions. A tight cluster of isobars trailed deep into the Southern Ocean with perfect alignment back towards land. This storm looked to be the one.

It was, however, gonna be tight. Monday was the glory day yet by Friday a firm decision still hadn't been made by all parties: flights had to be booked, accommodation found, transport too, and most importantly, Rip Curl, who were stumping up the talent, were yet to assemble a team.

The call came through early afternoon on Saturday, about the same time as the Geelong Cats were running onto Kardinia Park. From high in the stands, Neil at Rip Curl called to say he'd lined up a crack grom squad in Harry Bryant, Jackson Baker, and Joe Van Dijk. Each surfer was scrambling, the plane would fly tomorrow. The trip was finally on!....despite the fact there'd been waves every day.

The island's premier wave is, somewhat surprisingly, a beachbreak. At these latitudes, wild storms lend themselves to slab reefs and sheltered points, and the island has a few of those, yet on the north east coast is a long beach that benefits from a rare assembly of natural features.

Large south west swells wrap around the top of the island crossing shallower water as they do. The underwater topography – whatever mountains and valleys lay down there below the surface – cause the refracted lines of swell to split, bend, and then approach the beach at various angles of incident.

“The trick” says Harry, “is to judge where the wedges are going to meet and be in that place. They're semi-random but if you watch them long enough you can see the pattern.”

Where the waves meet they stand up in a wedge, jack quickly in size, then offer a side-splitting barrel each way. It's not easy pickings though, the lineup is dynamic and the sweep relentless. “You really have to hunt down the best ones,” says Harry.

The waves are a fraction the size of those hitting the exposed coast, refraction withers away at the swell lines. Yet these waves have wrapped 180 degrees breaking back into the wind that created them. The whole beach is offshore. And though the wave size varied, for the entire duration of their trip the beach remained just that – offshore.

When Slater and Curren and Hynd were visiting in the 90s it seemed the island was on the edge of real exposure. After seeing this beautiful untouched outpost the hordes would surely come, and yet now, almost twenty years later, crowds are still a rarity. In fact our crew only saw a handful of people surfing at all, which may have had something to do with the Antarctic temperatures, though that's the exact same reason the hordes have stayed away – when there's swell it's often frosty.

The locals who stay, who hole up through winter and see out the relentless south west gales, who eke out a living on the land or in the few industries, are a hardy breed indeed, and they certainly deserve their waves.

Every surfer has their own vision of Eden, and the local surfers have found theirs, yet their surfing arcadia is forever imperilled by crowds coming from the north and the south. It hasn't happened yet but it might and the thought causes anguish.

To complicate matters further, the economy of the island is shaky and tourism is seen as a financial salve – including surf tourism. The surfing locals we spoke to were conflicted about a potential rise in visitors.

“It's gotta be done the right way,” said one local. “The local businesses have to benefit.” He worked at a company that stood to benefit from increased tourism so accepted the pragmatic reasons, and yet he shunned a carte blanche approach. “It's all about finding the right balance.”

As cheerful as the locals are the island is suffering an existential crisis of sorts. “We need at least 1,000 people on the island to make business here viable,” says Jim Benn, a local councillor, “and we've currently got 1,200. Now, if the dairy were to close, well...” Jim allows the thought to drift away, as if it's too uncomfortable to give voice to.

King Island Dairy is the main employer on the island, producing and exporting the products the island is famous for. The business community would like to shore up their future and to this end various projects have been proposed in recent years, each with the goal of stimulating local business. In 2013 a wind farm was planned, and then subsequently dumped amid green energy politics, a tungsten mine in the island's south-east that closed in the early 90s is awaiting final approval to re-open, and recently a pair of golf courses – that cost private investors $27 million! - were built on the island.

Many folk are pinning their hopes on golf tourism to resurrect the island's fortunes. “But that's a summer thing,” says Councillor Jim, “and the winters here can be long, but as you've seen they can be incredibly good for surfers.”