Like many I was captivated by those first visuals of the endless left funnelling down a sand-bottom point ‘somewhere in Africa’ years ago.

I immediately said to myself, “I’m going to go there one day”. Fast forward several years and I still hadn’t taken the leap of faith to visit that mesmerising wave and to be honest it all seemed too hard. Too far away from the east coast of Australia and too much of a gamble given the fickle nature of the wave and the costs associated with getting there.

The hypnotic Namibian left is by no means a secret anymore; its whereabouts have been widely broadcast since it was first unveiled to the world by Californian Software developer, Brian Gable, 15 years ago. Gable’s computer-aided discovery came about through Surfing magazine’s enterprising ‘Google Earth Challenge’. Since Corey Lopez sent us crazy with tube envy on that first trip, we’ve all mind-surfed hundreds of Skeleton Bay lefts.

Just when I thought I’d stubbornly turned my back on the wave they often call The Donkey, a swell event earlier this year lit up surf platforms and social media accounts and reignited my interest. Soon, I was glued to the forecasts, looking for the right combination of variables. Sure enough an opportunity to launch a strike mission presented itself, testing my resolve to travel over twelve-thousand kilometres in pursuit of the best back- hand pit of my life.

With certain major competitive events running and solid swells hitting other parts of the globe, I figured this was the best chance I’d ever get to score it with a manageable crew, so I pulled the trig- ger and convinced my lifelong friend Matt Gilsenan to join me. Now, far-flung adventures to tricky locations are not exactly foreign to us given we made …