Ben Gravy: 'The Scariest Wave I've Ever Surfed' (Video)
Whereas most surfers seek out perfection, Ben Gravy hunts abnormality.
The New Jersey native embraces a house of oddities ethos in comparison to his peers in the traveling, vlogging pro surfing space. And that search for the strange has taken him all over the world to all types of waves – from calving glaciers in Alaska, to various shipping container and cruise ship wakes, to standing river waves, and beyond.
But his latest conquest might be his greatest. Or, at least, sketchiest.
In his latest dispatch, Gravy finds himself on an undisclosed, remote island. The waves in this top secret location are not the type one would typically travel 40 hours to get to – as seen from the first episode from his current surf strike mission.
But this is Ben Gravy. Sketchy, dry reef novelty waves are his bread and butter.
And so, after some slight scoring in the first episode, Gravy stepped it up in the second with what he’s calling “the scariest wave I’ve ever surfed.” That’s a big claim, especially coming from someone who has surfed the hazardous excuses for “waves” that he has.
“By far the sketchiest wave I’ve ever surfed in my entire life,” he said. “No joke. I dropped in on that, heading straight for a rock, but I had to stall because I knew it was going to be a good one. That was insane. When I got off the wave, it was this deep [inches]. I ran on the rocks.”
The wave is not big. It is not life-threatening in terms of drowning potential. It is, however, a slabby waist-heigh wedge, breaking over completely dry reef. One false move, one botched takeoff, and he’s on the reef. Like a human cheese grater.
But for Ben, that’s what it’s all about. After surviving the session, he remarked:
“This is what the novelty thing is all about for me.”
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