Captain:        Oliver Langley
                     

Location:      Caribbean

Passengers: Chelsea Georgeson
                     Samantha Cornish
                     Caroline Sarran
                     Sarah Gerhardt
                     Tim Bonython
                     Jeff Hornbaker

Capts Log 22 March 2004

  We spent another night steaming into the swell and chop and dropped anchor at about midnight. It was a rough little crossing and no one got too much sleep. However, to quote an Egyptian poet: “A thousand nights of anguish can be forgiven in a heart beat…”and the last few weary days and nights were forgotten faster than that this morning. For the first time since we have been on board, we woke up to a cloudless, and most importantly - WINDLESS, blue-sky morning. The glassy Caribbean is quite a sight and off in the distance we could see a point stacked up with smoking right-handers.

We are pretty certain this has not been surfed before. Martin had asked around with some locals on some other islands, and no one had ever heard of it. It does have a geographical name on the maps, but other than its bottom contours, the only thing that distinguishes it from most other reefs in the Caribbean, is that it has numerous shipwrecks – instead of just the obligatory one or two.

I won't go on about the wave, but it was a seriously good break. At times incredible. racey walls, plenty of bowly sections, always thick lips and the occasional barrel. Best described as a cross between Sunset and Laniakea – and not missing much of the power either.

The girls really took to this wave. Despite never seeing it before and the fact that everyone was under-gunned, no one was holding back – which is confirmed by the “victims” casualty list.

 You could easily ride a 7-footer out her, but almost everyone was on a board under six foot.

Sam got a couple of barrels, and also got slammed a few times on the way. Both her and Chelsea took plenty of big drops to set up the fast inside section.

Caroline carved up the face and also got a few larger ones, while Sarah probably got more waves than anyone. Sitting a little closer in, she took a few poundings from the sets and broke a board, but was rewarded with the super clean inside waves.

Sarah was actually the first person to catch a wave, so she got naming rights. She enlisted the help of others on board to come up with one. There was no shortage of contenders. It was first surfed by four women, so Four Queens, Cat Walk, Pussies and Venus Point were all considered, and thankfully all forgotten (especially the last one, Hornbaker).

Tim wanted to call it Seven Up because that’s what he was drinking on the boat, there were seven people in the water at one stage, and it was about seven foot. We replied that if was going to be that commercial a name, why not just put the name up for sale and see who was prepared to pay the most - “seven up” also got dusted.

Oliver suggested Shark Alley, because as soon as we stopped, he dove over to check the anchor. The first thing he saw was a shark.