Southern Limits

Shot on Fuji Velvia film in 2002 during the filming of The Billabong Odyssey, this was the year we first found Cyclops. The location was unearthed by Greg, our guide and local abalone diver, along an isolated stretch of Southern Ocean reef that most of the surfing world had never heard of. Getting there required a flight across the country, a full day of driving from Perth, hours in a four wheel drive and finally a boat ride into open ocean. What appeared at the end of that journey hardly resembled a surfable wave.

Solid Southern Ocean swell colliding with one or two feet of water over reef. The wave didn't break in any conventional sense. It detonated. Thick, distorted formations of water that seemed to ignore gravity, a mutated beast of pure southern ocean energy with nowhere to go but up. The first rides were by Mike Parsons and Brad Gerlach, by tow-in. They confirmed both the scale and the consequence of the place.

On a later trip with Mark Mathews and Richie Vas, the two of them managed one wave each, survived and both agreed immediately. That's enough. We packed up and left. They never surfed there again.

Without question, it is the most dangerous wave I have ever photographed. No Photoshop, shot entirely on film. Pound for pound, I believe it to be the heaviest wave on the planet.