The Down East Skiff Trip 

The captain is key.

For us, the discovery of Aaron Diamond was clutch. He’s a snowboarder and commercial fisherman from Northern New Hampshire. He is definitely in the family with us now. Fishermen over there are usually difficult to deal with. Finding a sober one isn’t easy. Diamond is, relatively speaking, sober. His boat is called the Jah Reel, though, which is kind of a tell. The first trip out there the boat was magical—
a dream come true. Second time we went out, the boat died in the middle of the ocean. We were stuck out there for eight hours and we missed the peak of the swell. We only had an hour at the wave. We’ve had other trips where we completely missed a swell because of sleep-in issues. We don’t run the most professional missions. We had one in September where we couldn’t get ahold of any of the captains so we just went for it on the skis. All day pain missions for nothing.

The hazards include the long runs in undersized boats, the sharks—it’s eerily reminiscent of relatively nearby Cape Cod—and the wave itself. The meter shows the wave comes out of the abyss, then goes from 380-feet to two feet deep in less than two boat-lengths. Sort of the definition of a slab. The inshore side of the ledge, where the wash-through goes, is where predators hang out. The fishermen look at us and say, “What are you guys doing?” We listen, and keep the skis buzzing around for immediate pick-ups.

It’s new territory and a very unique set of circumstances. You can’t really use what you know about forecasting mainland situations. When these photos were taken, the waves on the mainland were waist high. You have no way of knowing from land what’s going on out there. These shots represent the culmination of 15 years of attempts. This trip shifted everything. All the tumblers fell. We cracked the code up north, we cracked the code at midcoast, and had three other massive discoveries. As epic as this wave is, it’s not the best thing we found. All of these years of “fail, fail, fail, fail,” just relentless failing. Then that one day turned it all around. Go figure. Surf magazines are dead. We’re all 35 years old and irrelevant and now we find this. And we don’t care. We’re elated. 

If you’re searching Mexico or something, you’re looking at headlands and bathymetry. That’s just not how waves break up there. It’s all sitting in the Bay of Fundy, with the most dramatic tidal changes in the world. What you see hour-to-hour is a completely different world. Beaches disappear 400 yards away in front of your eyes, before you can blink. But that also means that new waves appear before our eyes on every trip.

This is boat-required surfing. I won’t say exactly how far offshore we are, but it’s out of sight of land. If something bad happened, the Coast Guard might get to you in time, or they might not. The whole area is the adventure of a lifetime, be it the sea crossings or the trespassing. The whole coastline up there is privatized. At one spot, I was actually pulled out of the water by federal officers. Some of these spots, if you want to surf you have to trespass. This guy came down the beach in an SUV. He had a machine gun, put me in cuffs, the whole deal. He said if I ever see you up here again nobody is going to find you. That’s it, you’re done, here is the paperwork, we know who you are now, get out. People up there are extremely private, from the Bush compound at Kennebunkport right down to randoms. They do not want to see people.

All the surfers in these photos are the “now” crew—Mike Gleason, Sam Hammer, Balaram Stack and a few young guys. These guys are relentless, and put in the effort whether it’s leading to published photos or not. A few locals certainly surfed this place before we did. The hilarious part is the conjecture, and how literally misplaced some of the reaction is. I’ve had death threats from Rhode Island saying, “Get the f-ck off our wave!” Threats from Massachusetts. Northern Maine. We haven’t said anything. “Keep the dream alive.” I don’t even tell my friends.