Wave Rave: The Donkey ride is a 'breaker'

22 October 2014 - 02:16 By Andy Davis
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PIPE DREAM: Somewhere in Africa curls one of the best waves in the world - a dream and a nightmare for surfers
PIPE DREAM: Somewhere in Africa curls one of the best waves in the world - a dream and a nightmare for surfers
Image: ALAN VANGYSEN

Ours is an age of surf imperialism, in which unmanned spaceships beam pictures of the world to the computers of wealthy, armchair surfers plotting their next holiday to the third world, far from overcrowded shores.

Here in the third world, meanwhile, locals are generally too poor to participate in the pointless, albeit joyful, activity of surfing.

In 2008, the US magazine Surfer ran a competition asking readers to spend time on Google Earth searching for "undiscovered" surf breaks. An expedition would be dispatched to surf the break with the most potential , including the winner who found it online.

That man was Brian Gable, a software developer from Irvine, California. While manning his Torrents and absently checking his Facebook feed, Gable had drilled down into a little patch of Namibian desert where a strange, arcing finger of sand poked out into the cold Benguela Current. On the satellite image, he could see the telltale triangle of white water that tends to mark a breaking wave.

The more he drilled down, the longer the white triangle extended, stretching for more than 2km.

On the strength of that satellite image alone, the mission of discovery went into the Namib, to what has come to be known as Donkey Bay.

Hawaiian Cory Lopez snagged the famous, endless barrel on a YouTube video that blew the lid off the whole thing.

Surfers from around the world made the pilgrimage to Namibia to tick it off their bucket lists.

Zigzag surf magazine editor Will Bendix visited a few years later, writing: "Donkey Bay is like a mirage. From a distance it looks impossibly perfect. Up close it can be just plain impossible for the layman surfer, as I found out.

"Even when it's small, the wave is critical and technically demanding. It breaks in waist-deep water over sand that is as hard as concrete.

"Just making the drop is a mission - and that's only the start. Is it one of the best waves in the world? Absolutely. But it's also one of the most challenging waves to ride properly."

Trouble is, Donkey Bay was not a discovery at all. Local hellmen had been surfing (or trying to surf) the Donkey for about 10 years before the rest of the surfing world gazed on this barren stretch of coastline.

The Donkey kicks like a mule. Just ask Sean Holmes, the low-key South African guy who beat world champion Andy Irons for three years on the trot in J-Bay.

On Holmes's first trip to Donkey Bay, he got flipped on take-off and smashed his face into his board.

Donkey Bay is a hard wave to surf but, ultimately, well worth it.

"The Donkey is an anomaly," said Sean. "One of a kind. A wave so unique and crazy that it will have your mind twisted between imagination and reality. You will find yourself asking the same question over and over: Was that for real?"

Excited yet? We're talking unfathomably long barrels. Barrels that launch careers. Tubes so long that there is no equivalent (yet discovered) in the surfing world. Tubes that have sold a million GoPros.

A word of warning because, let's face it, you're not a professional surfer. At best you're competent and Donkey Bay is going to test you like no other wave.

Big Wave world champion Grant "Twiggy" Baker said: "It's pretty heavy. It likes to find your weaknesses and zone in on them and tear them apart. Shoulders, knees, toes, necks.

"If you aren't 100% in shape, young, fit and nimble, it will break you."

Break you? That's just a turn of phrase. Don't let it faze you. The Donkey is waiting.

  • Davis is the publisher of Zigzag surf magazine. He has not revealed the exact location of Donkey Bay to avoid the wrath of surfers
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