Albee Layer, Nic Von Rupp, and Torrey Meister's Ridiculous Cave Session

Sink your teeth into this Portuguese feast at one of the world's most hairraising slabs

By: All photos by Joao "Brek" Bracourt.

On Wednesday Morning—as Peniche wrapped anticlimactically, and Nazaré pumped but not enough to give the go ahead—the green light was given for the Peahi Challenge. With a massive early season swell set to blast Maui Friday, Albee Layer—in Portugal filming with Dan Norkunas, and in case Nazaré ran—would need to cut his trip short, scramble across the globe to make check-ins just two miles from his home.

"Having a horrible time in Portugal," Albee wrote on Insta. "Really want to cut this trip short, fly around the world and send it at mid size, on shore jaws.... haha I hope I'm wrong but I'm very suspect of this forecast but we'll see. #itson @wsl"

With a pulsing WNW swell in the water, and only a few hours between dawn and AM lift-off, Albee and Torrey Meister met Portuguese slab savant Nic Von Rupp, as well as visiting US East Coast ex-pat Brad Flora on the muddy cliffs above Cave, paddling out just as the sun rose over Ribeira D'ilhas. What follows are images taken by Joao "Brek" Bracourt, one of our favorite European eyes, of what witnesses to the session and those familiar with the fickle freak claim as one of the most insane sessions in the decade since Tiago Pires pioneered the scalp-taker.

"So I changed my flight.... so my new flight gets in after the jaws comp has started.... so I'm traveling 22 hours to surf long period on shore jaws... so I probably wouldn't bet on myself ....so who cares. I got some of the best waves of my life today with a couple close friends, what else really matters?" - Albee Layer.

Click through the gallery above, and scroll south for a sequence of what has to be one of the best barrels of 2017, Albee's sub-sea level double-spitter.

While Brad Flora was sidelined early on in the session, Torrey Meister, shown here, took the donut of the day, sending it ass-over-tea kettle right into the Cave's sharp chompers.

Albee looking on legitimately concerned after Meister's beating.

Albee Layer, the universal signal for "holy shit, holmes, you good?!"

OK. Hold the phone, here. At this point everyone had given up on Albee, a just ungodly looking foamball behind that second spit surely knocking his feet out from under him—to the point where Brek stopped shooting for a split second, breathless, the whole cliff hooting their fucking brains out, whereupon Albee...