An intimate restaurant date with Kelly Slater

During J-Bay, this is what Kelly Slater was doing. Going wave for wave with Chris ‘Chippa’ Wilson at empty Restaurants. When Kelly (who’s not usually one to over-exaggerate) says “If it were a couple feet bigger, it might have been one of the funnest sessions of my life,” then you know it’s for reals.

“There was no one shooting other than me,” said auteur Riley Blakeway, who shot and cut this killer edit. “Kelly was on holidays and he was having so much fun surfing.” Riles was on Tavarua filming Chippa, and lucked into having Kelly’s Fiji stint coincide with theirs. Riles says that the edit’s nothing crazy on his behalf, ’cause he just wanted to keep it clean and let the waves do the talking. And he was right. Shooting 50m off shore, standing waist-deep in the shallows, Riles captured a perspective that shows just how below sea-level Restaurants really is.

Interestingly, after riding one of Kell’s boards the next day, Chippa couldn’t believe how responsive the thing was and immediately ordered a similar shape for himself.

This is the first of a series of self-titled vignettes Riles is doing, so expect more awesomeness like this to come.