"Easter 2015. That's the last time it was this good."

Tim Bonython is leafing through his diary as he scratches for comparisons to last Saturday's sessions at the Right.

It's a fickle beast, a lot of variables have to come together for the Right to just tick over. But for it to not just break, but really shine...well, that only happens once every few years.

"Put it this way," says Tim. "I've been shooting it for ten years and I've only seen it like that three, maybe four times."

Last Saturday at the Right was that good. Swellnet started tracking the storm a week earlier with each model run shifting the forecast. What about the direction? What about the wind? By mid-week, Craig Brokensha was confident and he gave Tim the heads up: Book your flight, mate.

"Nights before are always nervous," says Tim. "Everything has to be checked and double-checked, batteries charged, every bit of equipment working. You can't just come back to land and get it."

Rising to the alarm and busting out across the water in the half-light, Tim and his driver Wisey were on the scene early. The wind wasn't great at that point, but worse was when Tim switched his camera on and got a warning screen. We'll spare the technicalities, but he was having battery memory issues. Not good.

"I couldn't do anything about it," says Tim. Clearly the day wasn't just going to be about framing and positioning, Tim also had to shut his camera down and be clever about it. Problem was the camera takes a minute to reboot and he missed a number of incredible rides, while waiting for the beach ball, or whatever his Red Epic Weapon camera uses, to stop spinning.

By mid-morning the wind had backed off and gone true offshore, a number of tow squads turned up, along with a handful of bodyboard paddlers (!), plus a few cameramen in the channel, and the good times rolled.

All photos by Tim Bonython.

Dan Corbett on one of the waves of the day - there were at least thirty of them

Henry Davies, nose pointed towards land, eyes toward the channel

Anyone remember Chris Ross' double hand drag from 2014? Jake Osman does. He's shown here putting the same technique into action

Brad Norris displaying John John-levels of nonchalance

Jake Osman drives from deep inside a clean barrel

Dan Ryan in transition as the bowl section swings towards him

Unknown backdooring the left

Brad Norris backdooring the right

Bodyboarder Shane Ackerman put on a steely performance, paddling into a few waves that the tow crew let go. There's no way to paddle into the Right except from under the ledge so Shane had to hold his ground when the sets stacked up. This approach requires significant intestinal fortitude; the ability to put mind over matter.

But every now and again 'matter' won. In this case 100 cubic tonnes of it.

Said Tim: "Bodyboarder Shane Ackerman literally swam for his life when this monster came through. Yes, Shane survived, but only just. He got sucked over and held down without an inflatable vest."

"Shane was a lucky man to survive this moment."

We look forward to seeing the video.

Shane Ackerman paddle entry before his bluff was called

Simon Hicks driving a pure line through the bowl

Chris Shanahan in sequence: a carefree abseil down the face...

...leads to a critical cliff face run as the lip throws

Dan Ryan freefalling sideways

Dan Corbett under a big blue rainbow

Jake Osman staring at the heavens

Jake Osman at front and Anj Semark at rear doing a double tow - AKA the Bellet Ballet.

Shortly after they towed out, Tim shut his camera down to wait. When the call came through that a set was approaching it was too late. Brad Norris caught the first wave, which Chris Bryan filmed, and then had to wait for his camera to save and reload, while Tim's camera went through the whole rebooting procedure.

Jake and Anj were on the next wave and with no cameras rolling they had a double wipeout for the ages. "Wipeout of the year," says Tim. "No question. I was physically sick from watching it, and also 'cause I was missing it."

Apparently there's some iPhone footage somewhere so keep an eye out for that.

And despite the magnitude of the spill - Anj came up spitting blood - he ain't daunted by the event: "It's just made me more determined to nail that angle," he said afterwards.

Brad Norris perfectly weighted as the day draws to a close

Moon shot!