Nate and Kai, doing their respective things under the hood at Riley’s. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
Mullaghmore, when it’s big, is one of the most inhospitable places in the world to surf. The weather does not like you there. The wind howls, the rain is icy and pelting, and the waves are full of raw, untamed power. So it’s perfect for surfers who thrive in the face of adversity. Surfers like Nate Florence and Kai Lenny.
It wasn’t just the two of them, though. Natxo Gonzalez and Leonardo Fioravanti were there too, as well as Mullaghmore aficionados Conor Maguire and Gearoid McDaid. For Lenny and Fioravanti, it was the first time either of them had seen the Irish slab doing its thing in real life.
It was a session none of them will forget — especially not Natxo, who scored a wave that Red Bull is calling “one of the defining waves of his career.”
But they didn’t just surf in Sligo. After having scared themselves enough, they decided to pack up and head south to roll the dice at Riley’s, a wave so fickle and scary it could be a myth. The wipeouts are heavier, the water is darker, the barrels are tighter. It doesn’t offer up too many chances, but the ones it does offer… well, they’ll change a surfer’s whole perspective.
“It’s the kind of place where you just get a couple and don’t ask for more,” Lenny said of Riley’s, “because it only takes one wipeout for it to be the end of it all.”
