Dassen Island

Posted on March 30th, 2012 in Surf Trips with 3 Comments

A few months ago, during a large winter swell, a group of us decided (last minute) to go explore Dassen Island.
With no idea what to expect, we went into the unknown totally under prepared.

I don’t like boats!
I suffer server seasickness, which is rather unpleasant when I need to shoot off a boat, but what I experienced on this excursion was of the scale.

The boat ride out was intense as there was a big swell running. The little boat was rocking from side to side with force and in no time my seasick pills were rendered useless.

As we approached the island, we caught first sight of waves.
From a distance the left looked rideable and fun. However as we approached it was pretty mental. Big drops into the unknown and it were clear the surfers were under gunned.
Lucky for us we had Peter Lambert with us, who kindly “volunteered” to be the test dummy on his body board.
After a wave or 2 Rob Hope decided to catch a few, and as far as we know, he is the first person to stand-up surf out there.

Rob had this to say, when asked about the surf recently:

“ Don’t remember much, a bit too much adrenaline haha.

I remember not knowing what was coming up ahead like it could be dry at any second and I’d have to commit.”

It soon became clear that we were very under prepared for wave like this.
By now the worst seasickness in history had set in for me and the last thing I wanted to do was try capture the moments. I felt like death! I had and have never been so sick in my life and being out there on a rocking boat was not rad.

We then decided to drive around the island looking for another wave that was more suitable.

It was then, that we found “the Slab”
A hideous wave that comes out of deep water and then explodes on a shallow shelf. In short its pretty unrideable, well at the size we experienced but Peter Lambert and his body board decided otherwise.
Rob Also jumped off the boat with the intention of catching a few but there was no way he would get a wave with out being towed in.

After a few beatings we moved into a nice sheltered bay for a break and then headed back to the main land

This was an awesome adventure and I am amped to do this or something like this again.
However I am pretty disappointed with the photos I took!
It was so hard to do what I do feeling that bad! For most of the trip I was man down and missed more than enough photo opportunities but that’s the way it goes sometime.