Imagine Spending Eight Hours In A Makeshift Canoe — Only To Realize The Google Earth Image Was A Mirage - Stab Mag
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Imagine Spending Eight Hours In A Makeshift Canoe — Only To Realize The Google Earth Image Was A Mirage

“There was a moment when we really thought we were going to shipwreck.”

elsewhere // Apr 18, 2023
Words by Holden Trnka
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Everybody gets skunked.

Some more than others.

Scoring waves often takes leaps of faith — and nobody gets it right all the time.

Maybe you’ve opted for a fickle reef instead of a reliable beachie — and been disappointed to find wobbly, morning sick dribble.

Maybe you’ve even flown to Indonesia, or Fiji, or the Maldives — and been greeted with an unseasonable flat spell (see: Kandui upon our arrival.)

However, I can almost say for sure; that you have never traveled to a tiny African country, driven eight hours through flooded roads to a port town, convinced a local fisherman to take you in his small boat to a rivermouth wave you found on Google Satellite in the next country over — only to find that the wave is a jumbled mess of dangerous white water.

Musta been good on whatever day this was taken.

‘Crossing Borders’ is precisely this situation. The film, featuring longtime surf explorers Natxo Gonzalez, Kepa Acero, and Aritz Aranburu, is the only time I have ever been thoroughly entertained by the depiction of a complete skunking.

It’s emotional, culturally tuned in, and downright funny.

And yes, the crew of would be Mayflower-ers do atleast get redeemed with serviceable waves in the Liberian town of Robertsport — a left point setup, which you can read about here.

Otherwise, flick those English closed-captions on and enjoy the secondhand discomfort of an African surf trip gone very awry.

Kepa’s consolation prize.

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