In the niche world of novelty waves, surfers like Ben Gravy and Dylan Graves may dabble, but really, skimboarders are the ones that seek out the globe’s weirdest and wildest monstrosities masquerading as rideable surf spots. And Blair Conklin, inhabiting both realms of surfing and a skimming, recently took a trip down to one of the hairiest novelty waves around: Sununga, Brazil.
“I think I caught the largest bounce wave of my entire life this day,” Blair says of the video below. “Sununga, Brazil is home to one of the most miraculous wedging wave we have ever seen. An almost unnatural looking rock wall converts the energy of a wave from one direction in to another with almost perfect efficiency. When one wave crashes in to the rock wall, another wave with almost the same energy bounces off and travels perpendicular to the beach. There is really no other wave like this in the entire world.”
Blair was down in Brazil for a contest on the United Skim Tour, which local Brazilian (and big wave hellman in his own right) Lucas Fink ended up winning. And the wave, which resides in the Ubatuba region of the country, is a truly freakish and dangerous phenomenon. It’s like the Wedge, in Orange County, but in reverse and on some serious Brazilian steroids.
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Even Blair, whose well-versed in heavy, weird waves, found himself in trouble at one point. He nearly got pinned up against the rocks, stuck during a rising swell, and got pretty close to something serious.
“I probably had my closest, almost in trouble, situation that I’ve had in a very long time,” the Laguna Beach skimmer recalled. “It just got really big. I got one fun one, and I got kinda bated in. I went out for another one, then a big set came. I tried to duckdive the first wave of the set, and I didn’t make it. I got ripped back in. There was a second, third, and fourth wave. By the time I got hit by the fourth wave, I was pretty winded and close to the rock. Thankfully I was also pretty close to the beach. I was stoked to be touching the sand. Two more waves on the head, I probably could’ve blacked out.”
Related: Controversial Novelty Wave Awakens in Orange County (Video)