Brett Barley is a bonafide East Coast legend. Those big hurricane swells that light up the right coast? Barley is a staple. But just like everyone else, warm water calls every now and again. Not only warm water—a certain wave. Fresh off a trip to Alaska, he hopped on a plane for the end of the road. “I’ve always desired to go to Tahiti and surf Teahupoo,” Barley said. “It’s pretty expensive from the East Coast of the U.S., and never having been invited before, I just never have gone. Well, that all changed and I finally got a taste of the heaviest wave at the end of the road.”
In waves of all kinds, Barley is one to watch, but at a wave like Teahupoo, he’s positively riveting. So what does one learn from their first trip to Teahupoo? “I learned that the crowd factor is much more difficult than I imagined from seeing videos online,” he wrote. “I also learned I should never go back without my own filmer, haha. BUT, I had a blast with some friends, and it was an incredible learning experience that’ll have me trekking back to the South Pacific sometime in 2019.”
