Big waves, buried mushrooms. Two of Darian Cheffers’ favorite things. Photo: Tim Bonython
A couple of years ago, I was standing with my tail tucked between my legs on a beach in Portugal. Supertubos was in front of me, and it was far too big for me to go out. Enormous barrels fired on all cylinders, detonating onto the beach as the sun painted the sky in lighter and lighter colors. As I stood there, telling myself I was a coward and generally full of self-loathing (a relatively normal state for me), I glanced to my right to see a guy behind a very expensive camera, flannel shirted and barefoot in the sand.
It was Tim Bonython, and I knew him only through his YouTube videos of enormous waves. We spoke briefly — the usual hellos between people who’ve only known each other through emails — before shuffling away. Later, I watched the video that Bonython came up with from the day, and although I’ve found it’s nearly impossible to convey the feeling of a truly big day in the surf on a screen, he came damn close. That’s a long-winded way of saying that Tim Bonython makes films about surfing that you will enjoy watching if you enjoy surfing.
Bonython, who spends a lot of his time filming Australian hell waves, has been a busy fella in recent months. That’s because winter wasn’t all that great for his bread and butter location.
“It’s been a starved winter here on Australia’s east coast — only a couple of swells to get the blood pumping,” Bonython wrote. “So besides my Teahupo’o edits, Liquid Thunder Part 1 and Liquid Thunder Part 2, the 2025 season has been painfully average. But just as I was about to pack for Europe and the monster peaks of Nazaré, a deep Indian Ocean storm muscled its way toward southwest WA.”
After checking the forecast and figuring out where the best place to go was going to be, Bonython packed his cameras and struck out for a wave that strikes fear in the heart of even the most hardened of big wave surfers: Cow Bombie. It can be easy for a videographer to fall into the trap of making surf porn — just waves and nothing else. Which has its place, but sometimes there’s something equally as interesting.
“This time, though, it wasn’t just about the waves,” Bonython said about the film you see here. “It was about the man chasing them — Darian, a unique character who lives two extremes. One day, he’s towing into The Right, a wave he calls ‘the Everest of big wave surfing.’ The next, he’s underground, digging for black gold — truffles — beneath one of the world’s largest truffle farms. This story dives into both worlds: from the roar of the Southern Ocean to the quiet soil of the southwest. A film about obsession, balance, and the endless search for something rare — whether it’s a perfect barrel or a buried treasure.”
