An original video series by Surfline x O'Neill.
Diehard surf traveler and journalist, Matt Rode, had heard rumors of a certain wave. A machine-like lefthander, that on its day, funneled flawlessly for over 200 yards over shallow, live coral around a reef pass off an atoll somewhere in a sea of other atolls. Through his contacts on the ground and photos/vid he’d collected over the years, the time was now to pull the trigger on a very promising swell. Promising…but with locations this remote, always a risk.
Rode invited pro surfers Ian Crane, Brett Barley and Winter Vincent to see what some of the best surfers in the world could do with this left. And over two days of travel later, they found themselves at the translucent natural wavepool which had certainly turned ON.
Well…everyone but Brett Barley found themselves there. Missing a connection or two en route, Brett was stranded on an island halfway to destination. But after a couple harrowing boat rides that replaced a cancelled flight, jumped straight into the lineup and washed the travels off with eight hours of tube-time. The following few days served the crew countless barrels with no-one else out, a particularly close-call with the reef, and a bounty of fresh-caught fish (when they weren’t being stolen by the men in grey suits).
*Note: This is a series about the lengths surfers will go to surf perfect, empty waves. The waves you are about to see are not new discoveries -- but they are (nearly) perfect, and they are empty. The locations are not disclosed because our belief is that the journey is at least half the fun -- and sometimes, over half of the travel time. We thank the many local community members that helped make our adventures a success.
“Maps to Nowhere” Release Dates: Ep#1, “The Lost Atoll”, March 15th: featuring Ian Crane, Brett Barley, Winter Vincent. Ep#2, “The Accidental Treasure,” coming April 5th, featuring Cory Lopez, Brett Barley, Torrey Meister, Eli Beukes. Ep#3, “Timing is Everything,” coming April 26th: featuring Anne Dos Santos, Soli Bailey, Ian Crane. Ep#4, “Where The Road Ends,” coming May 17th: featuring Jordy Smith and Soli Bailey.
