The Southern Ocean Stirs
The Southern Hemisphere is entering that magical time of year when the air cools, the leaves begin to fall, and large, spaced-out swells start making their way toward south facing reefs in the Southern Ocean. Last week, Torren Martyn and Laurie Towner ventured into a remote part of southern Tasmania to catch one of the first swells of the season.
Laurie Towner describes the images from this early autumn session captured by filmmaker Ishka Folkwell and Tasmanian photographer Nick Green.
A nice cruisy warm up wave. When it’s slow you can sit for so long looking for bombs, you kind of just need to catch a wave to feel your feet in the wax in case that big one comes along.
Toz was eager to get out there straight away and this was a nice one he lucked in on early before others joined us.
Havin' a chat in between sets! On these sorts of days you're playing a patience game hoping the right wave comes to you. There can be long waits waiting for the ocean to deliver when it's a slow swell, but if you're just swinging on every wave you’ll probably end up with a broken board or pretty hurt.
This was my very first wave - it was one of those ones that felt really good. I hadn’t been in a tube that big for a long time. You leave your front door with anticipation about what waves you’re going to catch - is it going to come together, am I going to get hurt – all these things come into your mind before swells. After the 7km hike in, to make this first wave with no one in the channel was extra special. It was tricky because I was looking into the sun, but what's a glare in your face then enlightens everything when you pull into the tube. With the morning sun onto the wave everything is just changing colour in there - it’s just another cool perspective when you’re riding the wave and probably why we all want more tubes because they’re all so different.
Nick Green took this one of Toz from the water. He’s got such a unique way of shooting that captures some awesome perspective looking into the wave and back through the headland.
The swell hammers places like this all the time, but to get conditions to align, like all big waves, it needs the swell to wrap protected around the headland and the right wind for it all to come together. It was quite a slow swell but it’s always a bonus to get there and see it breaking - this was another shot of my first wave.
I kind of wish I’d caught one on Toz’s board – It’s awesome watching his approach and knowing he’s on a channel bottom twin fin where everyone else is on a thruster or a quad – he definitely makes them work. Those rocks he's walking through scare me more than the wave though, it’s so eerie, they're all just cubes up on that huge cliff - you actually hear them fall sometimes! I run around that section to paddle out.
Watching Toz's style with these sort of waves is amazing - he's super low on those bottom turns and that gives him so much drive to put himself in position, then his style sitting through those tubes is like on other surfer out there.
This is the shortest board I’ve ridden out there - a 6’6” shaped by Dyl (Longbottom) with a fair few litres. When I jumped on this it was like I’ve actually been tripping this entire time riding longer boards out there - it felt way better off the step and looking back on swells before when I've fallen there I wonder whether I might’ve made those waves if I was on this board!
Any wave out there that has a nice shape or line is a bonus . You’re always dealing with a few different bits and pieces, but if you make the wave, whether you get crazy tubed, or even just hitting the step without a tube, it's still really fun.
Looking west to the setting sun around the back near where you jump off to enter the wave. On a clear day it'll take till about 8 for the sun to come up because it takes that bit extra for it to get to you over the cliffs.
Torren getting spat out – it’s one of the best feelings. On some out there the spray from the wave can actually breathe in on you so hard when you're pulling in that it stings your eyes and then the wave spits behind as you come out of the tube!