Mick Fanning, Snapper Sandpit, Gold Coast

“Tonight was one of the most hectic swims of my life,” says photographer Trevor Moran. He ain’t kidding: the current at Snapper Rocks was really ripping down the beach, and the fact that the Roxy Pro had been run all day in fluoro blue perfection meant absolutely everybody was itching to hit it. “After watching empty waves drain across the banks all afternoon, by the time the final heat of the Roxy Pro hit halfway, the beach and rocks at Snapper were packed with frothers hungry to get a chance at the briefly empty lineup, which has been mind-surfed a hundred times before even paddling out.”

Mick Fanning asserted his local dominance, cleaving through the crowd and picking off all the best waves. Most sets like this one, he was packed inside. But he wasn’t alone. “All the world’s top pros were out there picking off bombs, and as they quickly discovered, they weren’t alone,” continues Trev. “I can’t even begin to put a number on the herd, but I can safely say over the course of two hours I swam about half a mile from Snapper past Greenmount and at no time was I any further than two feet away from another human being, often within arms length of five or more people at once. I can’t sit on a high horse though, as I was part of the problem, a traveling, budding, struggling-to-be-noticed professional, but I can definitively and proudly say I didn’t put anyone else’s life in jeopardy nor cause any bodily harm to another person. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case for a lot of people forming the long line of ants dotting the shoreline.”