One of the world's heaviest left-handers. Skeleton Bay, firing. Photos: Anthony Fox
They come from all over the world now to ride this wave. The name itself is a clever deception and accurate indicator of what lies in wait for the eager pilgrim. The digital dream clip safely packaged onto YouTube or some such similar narcissistic social networking platform is largely to blame as are the rags that call themselves journals and surfing publications – ourselves included. An edited clip or the deception of a moment in time captured by the click of a digital shutter cannot hope to do justice to the experience of going out into the sun-baked, wind-blasted desert wasteland and attempting to ride that freight train.
The first thing that newcomers and returning devotees alike need to deal with is the scale of the experience. I suppose for rugby players it would be like trying to play a game on a field the size of 20 normal rugby fields all stacked together, or for golfers playing 180 instead of 18 holes. The result is predictably bewildering.
Like rock climbers talk about exposure, the exposure of surfing at Skeleton Bay is intense. Words like long, fast and unbelievably powerful seem so innocuous while walking two kilometers back up the point. Why would anyone even write them down when the hypnotic squint into the afternoon sun burns your eyes right through to your brain as you absorb vortex after vortex of spitting hissing energy and the wind cuts and lashes you like only a desert wind can? It’s not a warm wind. It is not friendly. It tears the flesh off dead seals lying washed up on the beach leaving only white bones for the sun to admire as a macabre form of sculpture. The bones remind the walking surfers of their own mortality. Time is measured by the sun and the wind and how many circuits of the point are made before the body collapses into a stupor of exhaustion.
Jackals flicker along the dune line keeping their distance, like ghosts that only appear in dreams but are real to you when you wake up.
The water is hard. It is frigid and brown with a scum line that increases as the wind strength intensifies. The rip is unbelievable, and there is no way you can paddle against it. If you get unlucky you can do an entire lap of the point without catching a decent wave. A lap takes between 15 and 20 minutes. Two or three bad runs and you’ve gone for an hour without catching a decent wave – and that’s if you have someone ferrying you back up the point in a 4X4. If you are walking you can double that time, not to mention the energy expenditure.
The waves themselves are a magnification of a boat wake on the gentle beach of an endless calm river. Except there is nothing gentle or calm about them. This is perhaps because Skeleton Bay is not really a surf spot, but rather a very long beach where the wave just doesn’t close out. The wave hugs the shoreline as it warps at an incredible speed of ecstatic self-destructive energy. It is not uncommon to see waves at the top of the point imploding as the power and period of the swell overpower the height of the wave. This is where the word scale comes in to play again, but this time it is sneakily reversed. Imagine packing the speed, power and strength of a 15-foot open ocean wave into a 6-foot bolt of lightning and your mind will begin to grasp the forces you are dealing with. Then consider that the average wave there runs at around 50km/h. To catch it you need to be able to go from 0-50km/h in a few frantic strokes. How many people do you know who can do that?
All of these elements combine for a few days a year to create the illusion through the internet videos and surf magazine ramblings that Skeleton Bay is in fact a real wave and a legitimate surf spot. World-class surfers consistently crumble when faced with the scale and magnitude of the playing field and the elements on it. Yet there are a few surfers (you could count them on one hand) who for some reason are able to expand their game and improvise their acts, who can absorb the intensity of the experience and not be cowed and humbled by it.
To watch those guys ride this place is an otherworldly experience and true to the human condition it keeps the rest of us hoping and dreaming impossible dreams.
