Nate Florence looked over the ledge of this gurgling slab and said, “yeah, I’ll try that.” Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Nate Florence has a real preference for a certain kind of wave. Now, most surfers prefer, for example, a long, barreling wave with an easy take off. Nate? Nate wants a wave with the thickest possible lip and a drop that puts your stomach somewhere above his head.
Nate’s one of those surfers who sees infinite possibilities in waves most surfers would simply turn away from. The wave featured in this video is a good example of that. At first glance, it barely looks surfable — just a wind-blown, gurgling chunk of water breaking almost entirely on top of a bare slab of rock. But Nate? Nate saw nothing but the potential tube. A short barrel, to be sure, but a barrel nonetheless.
Nate coined this wave a “gurgle slab,” which suits it just about perfectly. After a few minutes of watching and a few hundred “oh my goshes,” the slab-hunting Florence suited up, paddled out, and gave the gurgle slab a go. This wasn’t the first time he’s tried to surf this wave.
“We tried for a second time,” he said. “And again we saw better ones that we rode. I think we got a few more waves and a few more tumbles along the bottom out there. We tried it on the low tide thinking it would be somehow better, and surprisingly, the lower the tide, the shallower the water.”
That last bit, obviously, is sarcasm, but they did what they thought they needed to do. And you know what? It kind of worked.
