Nick Colbey, South Coast swan dive, NSW

Autumn is a glorious time of year. The wind starts blowing from land, rather than towards it, the swell isn’t shy and the air’s crisp as can be. Oz’s South Coast recently experienced all three of those things in spades. And it was during that time that Nick Colbey, pictured here, surfed a certain slab with only one other man – a pro bodyboarder. Thanks to the nature of the wave (which you can get a pretty good grasp of from this image), Nick had to take off extremely deep just to make it under the lip. The one wave that he took off to wide is the one you see here. He slapped, was taken back up over the falls and then had his body pressed furiously to the reef. Reckon he made that mistake again?