Watch: XXL Escondido
May is south swell central in southern Mexico, and indeed every SW-facing coast in the region, however this May has been even better than expected with a conveyor belt of southern hemi storms making landfall.
This video, filmed by Hunter Weiss, is from May 17th and 18th and it includes a few waves that need further elaboration.
The second wave in the clip is by Kurt Rist and though Hunter gets the into-the-barrel angle, the front on view is better as it shows Kurt casually keeping it together as the wind gets under his board. Both the drop and the delayed bottom turn to barrel are prime examples of taking your finger away from the 'eject' button and trusting you can ride through.
Also, the wave at 1:25, largely obscured by the whitewash of the wave before it, is Greg Long. A better angle is seen here:
Keeping alive the tradition of big wave cool - treading the delicate balance between bragadaccio and speaking matter-of-factly - Long said "the lesson of the day" was to take off "20 feet deeper than you think”.
Comments
And Nate with one of the beatings of his life. Looked like hard work!
geez that exciting POV vision
can't tell if you're being sarcastic but i found myself kind of holding my breath/being out of breath while watching the POV stuff haha - maybe it's the sound?
Imagine paddling around and wiping out in huge waves with a camera in your mouth!
AP > not being sarcastic at all - I was holding my breath and counting out the hold-downs too - ha!!! I'd love to be able to take drops like that - but will have to be content with imagination & extrapolation! > RR
Watched last night. Some meaty tubes made in amongst that lot.
Unreal barrels. So good.
Watched a few clips of Nathan F there on a 7'0. Why? I know he's freaky good in barrels, but surely he'd take a hint from all the locals/regulars riding big guns.
The second wave in that clip absolutely captivates me, I could watch on replay for hours.. it defies logic, such cool calm composure... late drop, board wobble, tucks late under the lip of a tonne of water, deepest barrel and exit.... incredible. Unreal!!!!
Big boards and big balls!!
Heavy water....
Second barrel is amazing.
Seems even more so after watching Nates video and seeing how much work it was to get one, let alone wave of the day.
Gotta love Nate
La Punta would of been pumping 3-4ft!
So paddling out in 6-8 feet beach break surf is not for the faint hearted - how they getting out in that? Is there a massive rip or something?
Is it kind of a one and done thing I’d your wave closes out?
you either run the gauntlet or you paddle out from the harbour (but it's a fair paddle)
Man. Running the gauntlet sounds insane. People paddling out on 8-10’ boards trying to duck dive (which wouldn’t happen) 15’ of white water. Must be many that don’t make it. Must be big lulls?
Watch the Nate video, they literally duck dive 2 little waves. With my timing I'd cop 48 on the head.
Hah, yes, I'm with you. Two weeks ago I got dragged 1km off course and must have duck dived 50 waves - on an 8'0. Took me 45min to get out, yikes!
Nah its not that far of a paddle from shore - so if you do get caught you get absolutely detonated by the first one and then you are almost washed back up on shore - board in 3 pieces, shorts around your ankles and sand in every orifice.
The beach's northern (harbour) end is usually about half the size and has a shorter paddle. So it's easier to time. You can definitely still cop it though
That Greg Long left is insane.
The Nate Florence vid makes it look like an absolute horror show.
Yeah, when him and Ivan are pretty rattled you know it must of been pretty damn scary and hard work
Can't imagine a freefall drop and holding on and sticking it on a big board like that Kurt fella. That's insane. Total commitment. That board looks unreal once it reconnects with the face.
thanks for sharing my work. ill have another couple videos out this week and be here through the weekend. greg is still here for more and kurt is coming back. nathan left back to Hawaii. I'm sure there will be some big senders for saturdays 20-30. Supposed to be even better conditions
Cheers Hunter.
Look forward to it, mate.
Crazy, crazy photo!
wow. mad lines through that tube on a big board.
I'm in Central America now and surfed all those swells. Been non-stop since the start of the month. Never under 3ft.
It can't be understated how much bigger and crazier Zicatela is though, it probably was 8ft here on the big day. Yeah, it's because of the bathometry but it's essentially a closeout shorey. I was planning on doing the offseason there next year but looks like I might be coming back to Oz earlier then that. Maybe that's a good thing, doesn't seem like a relaxing wave! I would want nothing to do with that wave over 6ft.
Yep. When you hear that one of the Florence brothers had to paddle a mile back up to the harbour without catching a wave, you know it's a heavvvvvy wave.
Sounds like you've been scoring nicely about the place there.
Lucky bugger!!
Enjoy!
I spent a week there in 2009. The first day I waltzed down to the beach at 7am with my hire board thinking I was in for a nice time. It looked like clean 3-4 foot A-frames from the window of my hotel room. Sat down on the sand at water's edge ready to paddle out and noticed a set approaching and then a guy taking off. He stood up, bottom turned and the wave lurched about about 2-3 times over his head. I promptly returned to my hotel, put the board down and grabbed my camera instead. I knew my limits. Even when I did surf it for the following few days at 3-4 foot, it was a really powerful wave. The stuff in these videos is beyond my comprehension. Amazing stuff.
Absolutely insane. Shame he didn't stick around because there's a bigger swell forecast for tomorrow! He's really making a mockery of competitive surfing by putting out all the 10/10 videos.