“I went on land for a few hours and slept on a warm rock angled towards the sun out of the wind.”

Kelly corn-dogged in a kaleidoscope of Tasmanian colour. Pic: Luke Shadbolt.

Shipsterns Bluff has been on Kelly’s to do list for over a decade. After a false start over Easter due to the Rip Curl Pro, Kelly finally got his chance. In this full interview he breaks down the wave, its idiosyncrasies and his weak stomach for boats.

Have fun?

Yeah, it was fun. I kinda had a shocker in the morning – I didn’t bring enough clothes and I got cold and seasick. It was exactly like I had food poisoning.

Did you make it to land?

I went on land for a few hours and slept on a warm rock angled towards the sun out of any breath of wind (even though there wasn’t any). I was sprawled out on that thing.

So your first few hours at Shipsterns you didn’t even surf or watch it?

No for the first hour after we got there I was on the boat and then I surfed for an hour but my board wasn’t really working so I went to switch but it was a situation where my board was under all the other boards, and it doesn’t have any fins wax or logos or anything. So I was sucked in back to the boat to sort my board out.

Just long enough to get sick again?

Yeah, so I tried to surf it off but the adrenalin wouldn’t override so I had to go on the beach for a couple of hours (find that rock) and I didn’t get going again till like two in the afternoon.

But eventually got a few good ones?

I got a couple. The best one was some guy called? Something Brennan? [Michael Brennan] Some local guy? He got one of the sickest waves I’ve ever seen – didn’t make, but…

Tall blonde guy?

Kinda skinny, he had one of those Go Pro’s in his hand and he got whipped in went over the first ledge and nearly fell – he was just winding up the fucking windows. And then he just snuck his head in under the first chandelier lip – fuck the wave was like fifteen feet – huge wave. And then he came through that first ledge dropped over the second ledge and into the barrel. The photo is one of the best photos I’ve ever seen! A guy standing next me on the boat showed me his shot after and it’s one of the best barrel shots I’ve ever seen. The wave looks twenty feet in the picture – it’s fucked up. So sick!

Those ones only came ever now and then right? The big ones?

There was only like four of those ones the whole day – three of the maybe.

Did you paddle in or tow?

You could probably paddle into an eight or maybe ten-footer but after that it just starts getting really weird. You gotta kinda sneak in way behind the second ledge, but in between the first and the second, but way behind the second one so you can get around it. Because – unless you take off behind that thing you can just become part of the lip.

You don’t want to be too deep on the first bubble?

Well, I don’t think you could paddle in far enough back on that first one as the thing just warps out. On a big enough one to catch back there. Any of the bigger waves you see out there are definitely towed you – can’t really paddle those big ones.

Is this wave way safer than we’re all lead to believe because it pushes off into deep water?

All that water got to go somewhere it’s not going onto the rock and disappearing into dry land you know… If you watch that one terrifying one of Hippo’s where he eats it – he’s about as deep as you’re going to be on any wave of significance and he didn’t hit the rocks. If you pull in the barrel after the second ledge no matter what 100% you’re going to come up in deep water. But if you wipe out before that there is some rocks underwater water. There’s a couple that stick up like rapids and a guy hit that when we were out there and hurt his back.

How was the crowd out there, Perth said that bodyboarder Brendan Newton was going hard?

What’s that guys name? Newton. Yeah, that guy charged everything. If you surfed this wave all the time you’d feel comfortable with it. Like I know plenty of guys that are terrified of Backdoor but I’ve spent so much time out there I’m more comfortable there than at Shipsterns. But again there are guys that are going to be more comfortable on a fifteen-foot wave at Shipsterns than an eight-foot wave at Backdoor. That waves doing things that most waves don’t do, you can end up in a really weird situation going, “I don’t know how the fuck I ended up here in this part of the wave?” I didn’t have any damage apart from tweaking my back on the smallest wave I caught [laughing].

Will you go back?

Oh yeah, for sure. I’d love to go out there and have no seasickness at all [laughing]. It’s funny cause Shane’o [Shane Dorian] and I both get seasick on boats. The first 24 hours on a boat trip I’m always really ill.

No ginger tea or travel pills?

No I go for more bulimia, just stick my fingers down my throat and get it over with.

By Col B