Matt Bromley looking at at the wave that almost was. Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
It’s happened to the best of us: you paddle into a wave that you think is going to be great. Suddenly, though, it’s not. For whatever reason, you misread it. Maybe your foot lands wrong on your board. Maybe the wave closes out. Maybe someone chandeliers the lip in front of you. But you know that you were an inch away from surfing a really, really good wave. It’ll stick in the craw for a while, won’t it? Well, Matt Bromley’s got one of those.
Bromley is a guy who has surfed a lot of incredible waves. He spends his life chasing the biggest and the best of them, but he’s got a wave that sticks in the craw. It happened at Nias, a place he knows well.
“I remember thinking in the moment that it was just the most incredible wave and I was that close to having the ride of my life,” he said. “I could see it was a special, special wave, and as I was paddling I just felt so good. I had this energy and excitement. You could look over the edge and you could see the shape of the reef as the water sucked off it.”
You know that feeling, right? You’re looking down the line, paddling hard and realizing that you’re about to have the most fun you could ever dream of having. But then, disaster.
“As I popped to my feet, the wave just sucked me backwards,” Bromley continued. “The whole bottom of the wave fell away and I was in the air, just kind of free-falling. I got to the bottom and my board was still somehow under my feet. Then the thing just imploded on me.”
It’s a sad part of surfing; missing out on something amazing by just a fraction. But it’s part of it, too — and the sweet wouldn’t be so sweet without the sour.
