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Big wave surfers Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker and Stuart Fowles made local history when they surfed the Buffalo City harbour western breakwall in 15- to 18-foot waves (30- to 35-foot faces) in last Friday’s storm while the port was closed to shipping.
Three times World Surfing League champion and having surfed other big wave locations such as Cortes Bank in the North Pacific, Nazaré, Portugal, Jaws in Hawaii, Mavericks, California and Dungeons off Hout Bay, Cape Town, Baker knows a big wave when he sees one.
He said: “The harbour wall is crazy consistent, super readable and reliable and breaks like a giant Australian Kirra Superbank on steroids.”
The wave comes out of deep water onto a shallow sandbar and both men rode a good 20 to 30 waves on that day.
“It is calculated madness,” he says, explaining how he believes he is likely to survive big wave tow-in surfing, adding that at age 53 with his experience he knows how to stay out of trouble.
Fowles, 48, and Baker make a formidable tow surfing team, experience versus gung-ho, sharing jet ski piloting and wave riding.
It has taken a long time for these stars to align.
In recent times, Fowles has been surfing Dungeons with Baker, developing their combined skill set.
Baker explains that big wave safety has exploded in the last 10 years.
“All the jet ski pilots and surfers know how to do CPR. They are all trained in lifesaving and protocol.
“The buoyancy vest they wear is deflated and charged with a CO₂ canister.
“If they really get into trouble, they pull the cord, pop the canister and float to the surface,” he said.
Baker says he has only pulled his buoyancy rip cord once, while as a relative newcomer Fowles has pulled his 12 to 15 times in the last few years.
Tow-in rather than paddle-in makes a far safer drop and if trouble does crop up, the ski is already there.
“It is all about your experience and what you train for,” Baker says.
Put him in the front row of a Springbok rugby scrum and his neck could be snapped in the first impact.
It has taken Fowles a further 12 years to find the right tow partner and the right day
Out in the water, a Bok rugby player might drown in the first pass of a big wave outside set.
Baker had been chasing the swell up the coast since it savaged Victoria Bay and Plettenberg Bay.
His first stop was the fabled outsized waves of Bruce’s Beauties at Cape St Francis.
While local surfers have been mind-surfing the tip of the harbour breakwall for decades.
In 2014, in similar conditions, Fowles jumped off the rocks in front of the Wimpy along the Esplanade and paddled all the way out.
Riding two waves and wiping out on two others, he proved it could be done.
It has taken Fowles a further 12 years to find the right tow partner and the right day.
Jeweller, surf photographer and thalassophile Pierre de Villiers has been watching this wave and dreaming about last Friday’s tow-in surf session for the past 37 years.
The tip of the wall was visible from his classroom as a Hudson Park scholar.
“On Tuesday I spotted what looked like a special swell, a big cut-off low pressure with a pulsing 5m plus south to south-east swell. It looked epic.
“The only wrinkle in my plan was the wind. It was going to be howling,” De Villiers wrote on Facebook.
Explaining that the first person he called was Fowles and then Baker, as they had been chatting about it for a number of years, he said both expressed keen interest.
“Friday and Saturday morning looked like the best window for some big barrel activities and the decision was made to commit,” he said.
Formerly from Buffalo City, now a resident of Cape Town, Fowles drove 1,048km from Cape Town, towing his 1800cc jet ski, to meet Baker who flew in from Durban to ride Friday’s storm surf.
Friday’s wind was brutal, collapsing many tube rides, with Baker escaping his tube rides clean given his experience while Fowles took a “chandelier” on the head — where the lip of the wave collapsed on him — and the tons of water injured his knee.
Recently, Fowles has spent a month in Nazaré, Spain.
Giant waves have put Nazaré on the world map and the local harbour there welcomes surfers when it is closed to shipping.
One wonders to what extent big wave surfing might put Buffalo City on the world map?
De Villiers says the wave breaks about 30 times a year of which about five or six times a year will be world-class.
A call to the port confirmed that the Buffalo City harbour is closed to shipping five or six times a year.
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