Nobody has ever gone on such a mission to sniff out weird waves quite like Ben Gravy. “Novelty waves,” as he so often calls them, are his forte. If it looks like a breaking, moving, collection of water, he wants to surf it. And honestly, that kind of excitement about riding a wave is refreshing. For example, a good friend of mine has been up my butt the past few weeks about how snobbish I am toward wave conditions; how I avoid surfing with him most mornings unless it’s perfect.
And he’s right. Spoiled Southern Californians like myself can get lost in the “don’t get fired unless it’s firing” mindset often. Skipping an opportunity to get in the water because the tide is too high, the wind isn’t blowing in the perfect direction, or the swell period isn’t exactly “14 seconds for this one spot that works best on a mid tide at 198 degrees” becomes easier and easier all the time. Ben Gravy is none of these things. Case in point: the above video. Graeff referred to it as The Wedge of the East Coast — not claiming it’s as heavy as the Orange County wave, but as you can see by watching him, it’s a wompy slab of backwash, sidewash (is that even a thing?), and unpredictability.
“El Slammo might not be the Wedge,” he told The Inertia about his most recent novelty wave session. “It’ll never get as massive but it still holds a novelty charm of its own and I can promise you that there is no other wave like it.”
“Just got smoked for about an hour and a half,” he said after his session. “I don’t even think I got a good wave. But there is the slightest potential…”
I wish I always had that kind of optimism. I really do. I’m jealous.
