Not pictured: Ivan getting destroyed. Photo: Nathan Florence // YouTube
It takes a lot to scare Nathan Florence. The itinerant slab hunter has seen most of the heavy waves known to man (and probably some that aren’t), so when he returned from a recent session with a glint of fear in his eyes, that should be an indicator that something pretty crazy went down.
“So we just had a pretty eventful session,” he described to camera, mid-way through his latest YouTube offering. “It was big, like maxing on the reef – pretty much too big. In between, there was some sick ones, but every time we would nearly get cleaned out by a big set. So it was risky to sit in certain areas. [The waves] were so hard to read, and there’s so much surge going over the reef, and was all milky and spooky out there.”
The real cause for alarm came as a result of his brother, Ivan, though, who got absolutely drilled in an incredibly sketchy situation. “Towards the end, a literally 15-foot, maybe bigger, set comes and just cleans us out,” continued Nathan. “Ivan gets sucked over the falls, duck diving, literally to the point where I was actually worried. He bashes his board on the ground, gets blown apart.”
However, that hardly deterred the pair. Soon after, they were back at it again for a second session. “Two sessions, both pretty tough,” summed up Florence afterwards. “I got some nice visions, but probably didn’t ride what was available out there. Tide kept dropping out and getting crazy low. Was super pretty, though: epic conditions, glassy and the sun was out and the sky was clear and the water was nice. But the reef was getting very spooky.”
However, the experience of that first session still left an impression. “Ivan, I thought perished,” Nathan added. “I was actually, genuinely worried for him when he got pulled over the falls on a 15-foot death slab, dry reef. He said he got pulled over and his board exploded out of his hands, and the back of his tail [had its] leash plug ripped out and reef in its tail. Sketchy.”
