Ben Gravy has waited a decade for a freshwater tube this good. And good things come to those who wait. Photo: Screenshot
Ben Gravy is the king of the novelty wave. When weird waves are breaking, he wants to surf them. When fickle waves are breaking, he wants to surf them. Of course, when good waves are breaking, he wants to surf those, too, so when a weird and fickle wave turns into a good wave… well, he’s happy. And recently, the elements came together to make that happen, whipped up by a bomb cyclone. But it wasn’t an ocean swell. It was a Great Lakes swell.
“Epic swells on the Great Lakes don’t come around every day,” Gravy wrote. “Matter of fact, they don’t even come around every year or even every decade.”
Great Lake surfers are a different breed. The waves might not be as consistent or good, but Great Lake surfing communities are some of the tightest knit there are. The weather that brings waves is inclement, to say the least, and when a bomb cyclone hammered the area, Gravy knew he had to be there.
“Whenever I get the opportunity to surf the swell of a lifetime in the best freshwater waves in the world, I take it!” he wrote. “The 30-year storm showed up and so did we.”
It was a surf trip to put the final nail in 2025’s coffin. It wasn’t the easiest year for Ben, but he’s heading into the New Year with hope.
“A proper freshwater barrel is something I’ve been chasing for about a decade,” he wrote. “After a 20-hour travel day, due to delays from harsh weather, lightning, tornado warnings, and wind, we finally arrived at our destination.”
As he expected, the weather outside was frightful. Three degrees below zero, howling wind, and blowing snow are not the ideal conditions to be surfing in, but when the waves are good, some people will do just about anything for them. It wasn’t easy, though. Gravy had his heart set on that proper freshwater tube, and he wasn’t leaving until he got it.
“In minus-three degree weather, I paddled out and fought as hard as I could to make something happen,” he wrote on Instagram. “After about two hours of closeouts and 30-degree brain freezes, I paddled into this thing and it stood up perfectly to become the best freshwater barrel I’ve ever caught in my life, by far. Two days of travel to surf in freezing-cold water for just three hours to catch one barrel that didn’t close out and it was 1,000-percent worth it.”
