To Tow
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"To Tow"
Unless you were born yesterday, you would realize that tow surfing is here to stay. It just has too many advantages as well as being a hell of a lot of fun. The majority of people coming on these charters more than likely do not have any tow-surfing experience. Most probably do not want it, citing jetski noise and fumes as going against the grain of being at one with the ocean. Maybe they just don’t want to be whipped into a wave that seemed like a good idea at the time.
I had been itching to feel what all the fuss is about for a while now. I had met a lot of people that had towed and raved about it. I had seen the photos, videos. There was an itch I needed to scratch.
Charter 9, 2006, I broke the surface thanks to Shaun Dickson, Cameron Sharpe, Phil Coote, and Glen Beaumont. These blokes had all towed and if you haven’t done much of this, it helps to go with some-one experienced. Shaun is a classic. He has his own website (www.shaundicksonsurf.com) and wants to surf the biggest wave in the world. He lives for towing. He has learnt from a bloke called Rob Seiger in Hawaii, who by all reports is one of the most respected people in this relatively new sport. Shaun has been out at Jaws on those big days you see in the mags and movies. He was even nominated in the big wave awards for one particular nasty thing he took off on out there.
He was amped (he’s always amped). So we decided to hire a jetski. Thanks to our friend Scuzz from Sumatran Surfariis who organized the ski through one of the new camps in the area (Aleiota Camp). We lifted the ski onto the bow of the Barrenjoey with the cargo boom and placed it in front of the board rack then headed of into the wild blue yonder.
The big session at the right showed me what all the fuss is about. Normally at this place, the take-offs shift and you end up pretty frustrated missing a lot of waves or getting cleaned up by a shifting peak. With the jetski we were up and riding before the waves peaked and sucked out over the reef. We had speed across the sections that would normally be where you took off. We were riding 6’6” boards instead of 7’0ters. And we all had a go on Shaun’s 5’7” tow board. I lost count of the waves we caught. Nutty ended up getting dragged into the wave of his life. And best of all we were out there by ourselves.
I reckon we had a lot of fun because of Shaun and Cammo. Both are experienced drivers. Both erred on the side of safety. I learnt a lot in those few days we had with the jetski. I realisd that it opened up a different side of surfing. One we hope to pursue in 2007.
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