phantom Teahupoo

This below is a piece of moving art recorded Chris Bryan. This is exactly the kind of thing I live for, being able to see Teahupoo maxing at such a slow speed is an honour in my lifetime, I can't count how many times I've watched this. It's like being at IMAX not knowing where to look on the screen as you can see every detail. One part in particular at the end when the surfer slips and turns upside down looking straight at the inside of the lip exploding on the reef a few feet from his head. I cannot start to think what would be going through his mind or his pants! You can see how when a wave of this speed and power stretches the water leaving strips of air bubbles in the lip, I have seen this before in a couple of my shots at Bumbaloids and Rielys. I do hope one day I get the honour to photograph such beauty and capture things going on not usually recognised by the naked eye.
  A big high five to Chris and Billabong

Shipsterns

This little clip is tells of what really happens at Shipsterns when it's big, expect gnarly wipeouts


shipsterns from Dave otto on Vimeo.

Pacific Liquid Storm

Towards the end of the road

   Is it the perfect storm I ask, well the answer to that question would be debated forever so here are a few things to consider. Firt of all how damn lucky we are, how many people from the Chathams, Polynesia, the Americas to Alaska will enjoy this swell smiling from ear to ear as they glide along the long period glassy walls of LIQUID produced by a STORM pasing under good old New Zealand...millions?
   Tahiti was hugely perfectly wrong with waves ridden on the tow day rediculous, beyond belief to say the least. After some mammoth waves rode on Saturday they went back to running the Billabong pro the next 2 days allowing the best surfers in the world to have the wave to themselves with no more than 3 people in the line up, how sweet is that. Kelly took the honors to re claim the lead in the title race, some say he was over scored but really who gives a toss, they just got one of the best barrels in the world to themselves.
   I'm stoked that all this was broadcast on the net live to all who couldn't be there and shared with joy around the world. Now as the swell spreads from Tahiti it will smash into all of the Americas including Hawaii and a shit load of islands inbetween that aren't regurlary documented then onwards to finally gently caress the Alaskan coastline. Think for a second how many miles of coastline the swell will hit? How many breaks known and unknown will be going off, beach breaks, river bars, slabs, reefs, point breaks and how many waves will be ridden by this 1 Liquid Storm...?
   If I find any stories as it hits I will try to post them on this story so keep an eye on this page, and oh you might've figured out by now I'm not anywhere near these waves and maybe you're asking the question why am I'm posting all this,,,the luv, passion of it and to keep me alive inside

Clik here for a Puerto shot on magicseaweed

Clik here for surfline's take on the swell

and here for surfline's Puerto experience

Hawaii


Teahupoo

Teahupoo ohh my Teahupoo

Copyright ASP

If things had gone the way they might've I could have been on one of those boats today at Teahupoo witnessing some of the heaviest waves ever surfed there. Unfortunately at all ended weeks ago when I couldn't get a day off work but hey I can't cry about it too long and just have to stay tuned to the net and watch in awe the videos and photos streaming ontot he net  faster than a cheetah on steriods. The last hr facebook has been saturated with shots, surfline has stuff up and youtube's going nuts. Fair balls to everyone surfing it and for me I'm stoked there was such good photographers there like Ted Grambeau and Kirstin Scholtz to record it for all to see. Here is a couple of ahots and vid from the net so far

Clik here for ASP full coverage from yesterdays Tow session

Clik here for ASP photos

Clik here for Surfline photos 

Clik here for Magicseaweed photos





1000 frames per second camera

May 17 Shippies overload

Well on the 17th of May 197? my mother brought me into this glorious world, 30 odd years on on the same day Shipsterns has a fit, some of the photogs, film crew, surfers are calling the biggest surfed yet. Biggest or not these guys are feckn nuts, just look at the photos and video in the links below, it will blow you away. I really want to see this place break and take a few shots back with me, bring on next year maybe...

Clik here for "Australian Surfing Life" photos

Clik here for "Surfline" video 

Clik here for "Jamin McLean" footage on vimeo

Filth, pure filth

 Sorry Roo but I knocked your photo, sweet shot.

 Clik here to see more of Roo's work

This is what's been going down the last few days, unfortunately i'm not there but thank the webster for youtube and facebook to keep me sorta sane, will add clips as more comes in the coming days. Some pretty amazing surfing went down at the 1st towin comp in Ireland organised by Paul O'Kane in junction with The Irish Tow Surf Rescue Club and sponsored by Billabong and Monster energy at Mullaghmore. Paul did an amazing job putting a lot of this together, if it wasn't for Paul this would not have happened this year so a big thank you to him. Even though I wasn't there on behalf of everyone I would like to thank the RNLI from Bundoran and Sligo, The Irish Tow Rescue Club, Billabong, Monster Energy, which ever council gave the ok which I think might've been Sligo to run the comp and The Pier Head hotel at Mullaghmore. It sounded like an epic day. Apararently there was hundreds of people watching the comp, great turn out and support for the extreme sports people. Bring on next year...
Results:
1st. Eric Rebiere/Benjamin Sanchis
2nd. Peter Conroy/Glynn ...
3rd. Andrew Cotton/Al Mennie
4th. Gabe Davies/Richie Fitzgerald
Gabe also got best Barrel, it's in the clip below at around 28sec in, Richie also got most gnarliest wipeout

Roo has an awesome photo in the Irish Times, just clik here to view it

This the latest clip is pretty wicked, it's good to see a few camera people putting there heads together to do a pretty cool clip and using there imagination. Keep an eye out for a documentary maybe later this year by these talented videographers. 4 different angles. The water angle is sooo close to the action that it makes me fell like a scardy cat not being closer myself in the sessions before. Big congrats to Peter Martin, Peter Clyne, Dave Mottershead and Daniela Gross. Well dones guys, cool bananas

Mullaghmore Head "Tow in Surf Session" from Mully Productins on Vimeo.

The latest and best footage so far, 3min 10sec in...


The following clip insane barrel at 28sec

This next clip at 2.08 in, what a barrel


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Also more from around Ireland

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more to come...

Tow board Irish style

Tow surfing has changed my life and I don't even do it! From the first time I photographed tow surfing it has taken my breath away. Ever since that day, I have lived ever day for heavy and big waves. The excitement of it all, watching and documenting the crews charging these slabs has been inspirational. There was no way I was leaving Ireland without a piece of everyone I have photographed towing. So I had Mark McGuire from Power Source shape me this tow board. I decided it would be fitting to have the Irish flag gracing the foam. 2 layers of glass went on then it went on a bit of a tour around Ireland getting the signatures of the tow crews. Finally after a long few months it is now complete with a final coat of glass to seal in the memories.

Thanks everyone for the great times and memories and for being patient with me and meeting up to put your stamp on it.
Cheers Mark, your a legend.

To shoot stills or video Aileens style

At heart my passion is surfing photography but i've always had it in the back of my mind to do some video as well & seeing some of the crazy videos coming out of Ireland recently has to inspire you to look seriously at it but this brings me to my problem, when you're always by yourself doing this sorta of thing do you stop shooting stills and do video for the day? If it's epic you might miss out on the photo of a life time in full res and the oportunity of getting me first cover. So a while back it got me thinking why not make a collar that'll fit on my big lense on my stills camera with a mount top and bottom so you can have the lense mounted on a tripod with a video camera mounted to the top of the lense...sure i've only got a limux compact but it records 720 HD and not too bad as well. So I set out with the idea in mind & gave it to my good mate Graham who took all the measurements and carved it out of 1 solid block of aluminium & did a cracking job I must say. I know i have put this in me blog before but this time i have the results. So it was at Aileens or is it Aileen's? Who cares, anyways it was at the cliffs of Moher earlier this year, below is the stills results and at the bottom is the video result which you're better off to go into youtube and view it in 720 HD, the video camera is mounted on top in the centre with a height adjuster to allow for the slightly different angle when you zoom in, works a bloody treat if you ask me.

Me collar

Click here to watch full screen

My apologies Ferg...

As we say back home "i screwed up", earlier in me blog i said this is Tom Lowe but out came Carve mag and it's frign Fergal Smith. Sorry about that Ferg, so to fix my balls up i have put here the full sequence of Ferg's unreal barrell at Aileens. One of the most insane barrells i have seen there, for someone so young he certainly does charge, i think his philosophy must be go hard or go home...

Paddle vs Tow

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It’s a big question & 1 that will never have everyone agreeing on. I’m a longboarder at heart, not a new age one but a traditionalist, I luv the feeling of surfing a big old 30 pound log shaped 50 years ago easing into a bottom turn then drawing a line straight down the point with toes on the nose, my last board thou was a lite weight nose rider but in recent years I have taken to photography as my passion for big waves basically exploded here in Ireland with the birth of Aileens (cheers Mickey). Paddle surfing is where the heart of surfing is, although I remember a particular Bruce brown movie from the early 60’s with Phil Edwards and Del Cannon towing behind a boat on their 30 pound logs, I wonder where tow surfing would be today if they had thought to take it a step further than just on a river, my point is it’s all about fun and the rush. Tow surfing started off on waves that were moving too fast to paddle into so that makes sense but things have changed in the last few years, waves these days are being towed at barely head high and others are being paddled at 4-5 times overhead which leaves alot of confusion over when to tow. There are slabs out there that break so hard and fast that if you paddle you will get injured and generally the body boarders can make the drop and pull in but they too can still get a fair hammering, one spot in particular in Ireland has had alot of injuries in it’s short life but 90% of them are due to paddling in and this is where the tow surfing comes into it’s own, already standing and getting whipped in at 30km/hr gives you a huge advantage to survive the deadliest of waves and most importantly get the ride of your life.

Then there’s other spots like Aileens where body boarders are paddling into pretty big barrells on a certain swell, air dropping out of the lip on takeoff, these guys are nuts but are having the time of their lives. There’s no way thou that a surfer could consistently paddle in these waves at this size and make each one so that’s when the jet skis come into it, problem is there’s guys paddling it. General rule of thumb if you get to a break and there’s paddlers on it you leave them to it. But there’s something very unique happening here, the body boarders are glad to see the skis turn up as when they do get caught inside someone will head in and pick them up, Aileens is not a nice place to get caught in “boulder alley”. So far there hasn’t been a problem with the skis towing at the same time as they always wait for the biggest wave of the set where usually the paddlers are scrambling for the safety of the shoulder and the surfers getting towed are whipped in well away from the paddlers. Anyone who tows out here will always ask the guys paddling first if they mind if they tow a few of the set waves. With the way things have worked out there’s a really good relationship between the two and is actually bringing body boarding and surfing closer together which I think is a awesome thing cause we all there for the same reason, why fight over it! The most recent session at Aileens saw some incredible tube riding by both body boarders and tow surfers, everyone was hooting everyone, naturally the tow surfers got more waves but the body boarders got some pretty frign deep barrells too, the boys on the skis always ask if the body boarders want a tow for the craic and they luv it, although it can be a bit bumpy for them!

So what’s the answer to the above question, well in my eyes it’s easy. Tow surfing should be for breaks that are abnormal to paddling and makes it a hell of alot safer, it doesn’t have to be 40ft to justify it but if you do tow and there’s paddlers out there don’t be a f#@$%# idiot on a ski, respect the paddlers like the tow crews in Ireland are doing, ask them if they mind if you grab a few and if they say no respect it and go somewhere else, go in and help them out if they need it and most important of all everyone is out there to grab a few waves so don’t be a greedy b#@&#%>

Respect

Here's a couple of shots from the recent paddle & tow session at Aileens,

Tom Lowe's barrell #100 for the day!

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Jack Johns paddle in

Tom Gellespie

Shambles getting sucked over

Mullaghmore kicks 2010 off

Well it was a over a month since any decent swell hit up here and only a few were around to grab some fun waves at Mullaghmore. Thankfully the big thaw had happened and there was no ice skating getting there! I decided to shoot from the land for a change and it was alot drier! Althou i did miss the excitement of being out there. Easkey grabbed the rope and was first to tow and got a bit of a foamy one but still some size in it and very very shallow. Neil grabbed one but then they had some running problems with the ski and had to retire early. Paul and Barry swapped around and fed off each other carving it up bagging a few waves along with Shane and youngster Peter who took this gnarly vertical drop, it was pretty heavy looking. It wasn't anywhere as big as they hoped for but it was a good practice session for them all with a little sun out as well, a bit warmer than the recent cold spell...
Easkey on a foamy slippery face

Paul carving it up

Sth African Barry ripping it

Shane from Cork

Young gun Peter Clyne's verticle drop...

...and this happened on the next one!

Dave Lavelle

Been a long time coming this, Dave's been towing since day dot in Ireland, originally teamed up with Mikee back in the days of towing with fast cats and ribs into usually unaccessable waves. So i'm totally stoked for Dave to get this on Towsurfer.com with this nice little bomb at Spot M. Congrats mate and Merry Xmas

Carving Al Mennie

Al Mennie gets a whopper at Aileens in Carve magazine, well maybe not a whopper.....fair balls to Al and Cotty for taking on her big fat lumpy behind, a big part of their 10 day action packed adventure, some were saying it was some of the biggest surf ever ridden at Aileens, great shot Mickey, a true waterman.

Big Al

Home is calling

I got an email from NZ telling me to check out NZ Surfing mag online for a look at a beast of a wave they had recently surfed for the first time back home. I straight away got on to mum to send me a copy over(cheers mum, and thanks for the socks), it arrived yesterday in the post and wow it blew me away, after seeing how you don't really need a big swell to get big waves over here in Ireland I knew there would be some gold in surf soaked NZ. This wave is 20 or so km's off the coast so all that produced this was a 4m swell, i am loving it. Cory Scott was the photographer, the lads who took it on were Sam Willis, Damon Gunness, Daniel Kereopa, Felix Dickson, 2 skis and a 14ft boat with spare fuel and a band aid! Fiar balls to them, they surfed for 6 hrs solid in sunshine, from what i hear they're still grinning ear to ear. It's got me pumped for now i know not only are there tow spots being found but there are some damn good surfers amped to tackle them, can hardly wait to get home. So much potential and espeacially at places like this where a good part for the year it's near glassy conditions with the sun out.
Thee mag

Insanely beautiful

Winter '07

Everyone seems to be doing a bit of videoing these days so i thought i'd better jump on the band wagon before my hard drive packs up. Back in 2006 i bought me self a crappy camcorder just to muck around with and it broke in 2008! It just so happened that i had ended up capturing the swell of the decade in Feb '07, Doolin was just a white water mess, including the locals many have said there were waves of 80ft on the face at Aileens this day, when you watch this keep in mind i filmed this at high tide and Aileens is barrelling it's tits off and check out how it's breaking on the stack at high tide too! Some really scary footage at the start of someone getting rolled over boulder alley at Aileens. Al getting whipped in by Cotty on a perfect monster peak, with some smaller waves towed by Axi and Benjiman putting on a mental display of barrel riding earlier in Dec '07, my apologies for the camera zoomed out so far, i was taking photos at the same time which brought me to the idea below. And some footage of Steve towing Tom and Paul towing Duncan New Years eve '07. Music by "No us for a name". It's only short and the camera quality is absolute shite but enjoy anyways, something from the past.


The idea occurred to me while trying to film and photograph at the same time at Aileens in '07, i finally decided to take my idea to good mate Graham recently, he polished the design off and carved it out of a solid block of Aluminum, and this is the result. Cheers Graham, all i need now is for someone to sponsor me a decent camcorder...please

Mental Mullaghmore

What a day of everything, the weather was the normal doom and gloom but we didn't care cause the waves were insane, one hell of a big day for Mullaghmore, great crew of guys on it, really worked together well, there was Mikee, Paul, Al, Cotty, Duncan surfing, with Dave as back up & safety as well as taking a bit of video alot bit closer than we could get in the boat, had Declan driving the boat with myself and Joe trying to get something on the cameras through the rain & misty spray rocking about like no tomorrow. Mikee took the rope first being the only Goofy foot out there and bagged a couple of bombs that we missed due to unforseen circumstanes with the boat which made us an hour late, apparently one of his waves was just mental, also missed Cotty's bomb that nailed him big time ripping off his £700 brand new knee brace & almost his leg too!! Once we were out there it was really bumpy and heaving. I couldn't help but wonder if all these guys are nuts or just so stoked on surfing that they couldn't pass this up. I was crapping myself as everytime i went to shoot some shots i nearly fell out of the boat with all the chop! It was great to see it all from the water thou as this was the first time here for me from that angle, pretty unreal. Duncan got some impressive waves, seemingly not fazed by the size of it all. Paul got some great ones and did a stonking job on the driving and big Al got the squarest wave i have ever seen. For more of a story go to Wavelength. Can hardly wait till the next time, cheers guys

Mikee gunning it

A week in the life of Al & Cotty

Al and Cotty's amazing week, it all started on the 20th of October when Al Mennie and Andrew Cotton drove 7 hrs thru the night for one of the biggest sessions ever surfed at Aileens, the only other surfers who dared take her on was Fergal and Shane, with 3 other skis in the water watching. They surfed what is been said as the biggest day surfed there, you can see some photos of mine on Towsurfer.com. After that Al and Cotty then had to drive 7hrs back up to Portrush then hope on a plane to Oregon via Heathrow airport to compete in the Nelscott Reef Classic on the 22nd of October doing UK and Ireland proud. After geting back a few days later there was a call on for Aileens again, not so big this time but good for a paddle so they drove down 7hrs again thru the night to surf it at day break on the 27th October, Al paddled into a few nice ones and then they towed a few along with Paul O'Kane, and if that was not enough Crab was going off so they then surfed that for 4 hrs before packing up and heading back up north, but this time instead of another 7hr drive it ended up being a days drive as the van broke down. These 2 guys have heart and soul when it comes to there passion, surfing, they don't winge about fat waves and being bored, they're just stoked to be out there surfing and having the honor and skill to ride these monsters, fair balls to yas, yas are a bigger man than i'll ever be. hahaha
Have just found out that they have also have been accepted for nomination for the Billabong XXL, so congrats guys and well done.

Andrew Cotton

Al Mennie

Aileens October

Shipsterns blowing minds