Just before the camera vanished and just after the camera was found. Photos: YouTube//Screenshot
If you follow surfing on any form of social media, you likely saw Brenden Newton get absolutely hammered into the rocks at Cape Solander recently. Tim Bonython, a guy who has a talent for being at every single giant swell no matter where it is on the planet (and also a guy who is familiar with losing cameras), was filming as it happened. Amazingly, Newton wasn’t seriously hurt, and even more amazingly, he returned to the scene of the accident eight days later and found his lost GoPro.
It’s a tough clip to watch, but it’s made easier with the knowledge that Newton came out of it relatively unscathed.
“Here we have Brenden Newton exiting the water at Cape Solander on what was one of the bigger days at the Cape,” Bonython wrote. “On this day if you’re coming in then you better be patient as getting rolled up on that rock shelf can be pretty disastrous.”
Newton is no rookie to heavy waves like “Ours” or situations like the one he found himself in. He’s a bodyboard lord and a fearless water photographer who routinely puts himself in harm’s way for both the shot and the barrel.
“While surfers and bodyboarders were fighting to stay alive,” We Bodyboard wrote on YouTube, “Brendo was there right in the impact zone shooting all the action.”
A few days after he cleared all the sand and water from the various orifices it must have ended up in, Newton decided to go and look for a GoPro that was ripped from the camera housing when the wave smashed him into the cliff. Miraculously, he found it.
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“The GoPro got trundled off the little housing,” Newton explained. “I’ve been looking for it for about half an hour… and look what I found!”
The video you see here is a mashup of Bonython’s clip of Newton getting rag-dolled, the footage Newton shot beforehand, and then, finally, Newton’s reaction when he finds the camera.
“One of the most impressive camera retrievals we have ever seen!” We Bodyboard wrote. “We bow down to you Brendo, what an incredible waterman!”
