An Act Of Kindness
On the road and making a beeline for the coast was Dave Lyons, of Kaikoura, and Dan “Delta” Smith, of Christchurch. They would be the last tow team to arrive … just a few hours before dark having travelled such a long way. But their excitement would be cut short by a ski that refused to fire.
Dave, who uses his ski for fishing also, had recently had a marine sound system installed. It seems the wiring was draining the battery and after half an hour they realised it would be too risky to take the ski into that environment.
That’s when James Cross stepped up. He’s the full safety guru out on the water and has transformed the South Island tow teams and their practices. He offered his ski instead.
And with that Dave and Delta were on their way.
They took a slightly different line to the others and turning up on the sweetspot of the tide meant they didn’t have to navigate the lumpier backwash sections. They were dropping each other in right at the very top of the wave – a section that was unmakeable just an hour earlier.
It actually caught me by surprise when, out the corner of my eye, I saw Delta pull into a huge cavern that I was convinced was a closeout. I then decided to shoot the spit as it was a large compressive cavern. As I pressed the shutter, to my astonishment, I saw Delta burst out onto the face. He must have ridden at least 80m inside this thing. I’ll run the photo here, even though it is blurry (camera operator error).
I was excited to hear Delta’s story on what I imagined must have been a pretty amazing view.
“I couldn’t see a thing,” he laughed. “There were three big sections and each one would spit and obscure my view. I was just holding on, completely blind trying to feel my way out of it.”
The pair surfed to dark with Basil and a few others paddling as a bunch of onlookers gathered on a nearby hilltop. The last rays of light revealed waves in all directions as the swell mellowed slightly.
