Dylan Graves Tackles Deadly Tidal Rapid In Remote Australia (Video)

“I did some Googling, and came across some videos of Horizontal Falls,” Graves narrates in his latest edition of his ongoing Weird Waves chronicles. “After seeing this, I thought surely one of these features had to be rideable. With my passion for weird waves, this place ended up on my list. But it always felt pretty farfetched that I’d actually make it here."

He added: "That was until I ran into Anthony Walsh, who had in fact gotten visual evidence of a surfable wave in that area. That gave me a lot of confidence going into an exploratory mission like this. I should’ve known with Walshy’s big-wave background, that this was going to be a doozy.”

Explaining the wave a bit more, Graves said:

“The wave we came to surf is a tidal rapid. A tidal rapid is when tides are so extreme, they turn still water into something that moves, and behaves like a river. And while this is a common experience, rapids are not. The seafloor needs to be shaped just right for rapids, and even waves, to form. But a surfable rapid? That’s even more rare. There’s actually very few tidal rapids on this planet that you can ride."

And once they finally got out there, while mesmerizing, actually riding the thing was a whole different story. In short, things did not look safe:

“There was absolutely nothing comforting about the rapids out the back of the wave. I’ll just say straight up, it was highly concerning. The laundry list of questions only grew as we sniffed around. How do we actually get on this wave with all this water moving? What angle do we come at it with the ski? Is the wave itself even rideable?

In the end? Graves concluded:

“That was the most intimidating wave I’ve ever surfed. Hands down.”