Greg Long May Have Just Gotten The Wave Of The Season At Puerto Escondido

Greg floated out in the lineup for three hours before catching this one. And as the old adage goes, good things come to those who wait. Not scraping into a closeout and sniffing out the wave of the day always helps too. 

“The day before this saw tonnes of injuries as the swell began to build and move in on the low tide sand bars,” says photographer and filmmaker Owen Shultz, who captured the clip above. “An Argentinian tore ligaments in his knee, a local broke a vertebra in his back and Jamie Mitchell, as you’re aware, broke his sternum.

“But the afternoon of Jamie’s injury saw almost two hours of a non-stop onslaught of perfect waves breaking up and down the beach with no takers due to the morning’s proceedings. There were lots of smaller waves sweeping in under the pack only to break perfectly on the sandbar.

“It was Greg and local surfer Oscar Moncado’s waves that stood out from the rest. Greg’s was bigger and cleaner than anything from the day before and Oscar’s was as perfect as they come. The crowds jostled for position up and down the beach and due to its size on the downward side of the swell there were only a handful of XL waves throughout the morning that went unridden. The locals seemed to use their knowledge yesterday to earn a few more of the insiders than the rest of the pack.”