Words and photos by Ollie Brennan

The day before these photos were taken was a fully fledged storm.  Waves were breaking in places I never thought were possible, some over a kilometre out from the beach. So it was a little hard falling asleep to the sound of howling wind and violent ocean conditions with the anticipation of the next morning.  

After the short drive from my house, my good mate Sam Jones and myself joined the building crowd at the viewing spot. All it took was one look at a nicely shaped barrel and with no one out yet, the decision was quickly made.

After a quick scramble getting all the gear set up, we zipped down the stairs to the end of the beach where a well positioned rip was waiting to sweep us into the path of some of the ten footers closing out the bay. After the swim out through the rip, and about halfway to our destination, a truly large line of swell started looming, It was so far out I thought it was impossible for a wave to break, but here it was, starting to feather. We just scratched over the top of it. 

The view from the channel was insane; the local was five times overhead and hollow. At the same time, there was a massive amount of energy in the ocean. The sets came were pushing a huge volume of water. I had to battle to not get pulled into the impact zone, while the next minute I had to battle not getting pulled out to sea. 

Later on, as one of the biggest sets of the day started to stack up out to sea the pack started to really scramble to get out of its path. I don’t know how it happened but some poor soul found himself on the ledge, in the impact zone for probably the biggest wave of the session.

I remember looking through the viewfinder, seeing this literal wall of water start to fold over, the lip passing over him and his board then just detonating. It was the one of the heaviest things I’ve ever seen.

The following two waves were not much smaller. After the second, with the third wave of the set looming, I’d been pushed to the inside so I had to really swim to get out of the way, I just made it, opting not to dive under, but pause just long enough to scream into an empty cavern as the lip passed over my head.
 

Near the end of our session, Sam Jones picked up a real nugget (see photo above), it was a touch smaller than some of the bombs but that only meant it hit the inside section and opened right up. Sam didn’t come out but definitely got some tunnel time. Yeah, it was a good day.

The following photos are in sequence. More images from Ollie on Instagram here: instagram.com/olliebrennan