IN THE LAND OF THE LEFTS (Doofs trip to Chile)

Arrived in Santiago after three weeks on the road, getting some good results on the WQS. To them that surf, Chile is known as the ‘Land of the Lefts’, and I was keen to get me some.

Hooked up with Heath ‘Hunter’ Joske and Nick ‘China Doll’ Riley, then picked up a 4×4 truck and headed into the Santiago CBD to pick up another friend, Benny ‘The Rapist’ Serrano. Benny has been living in Chile for the past year and was going to be our guide during our “epic” adventure. Spent the next three hours driving down one blocked off road after another (the result of the recent earth quake) before arriving at our first destination, Punta de Lobos.

Benny had organized accommodation at the local surf camp. The place had amazing, luxury cabins. After booking in, we found our way to the bar and ordered a meal. We’re waiting for dinner to arrive when Benny receives a text from a girl he’s met. “Gotta go”. He grabs the keys to our pick-up and is out the door. There is some debate about his ability to drive a 4 x 4 until dinner arrived and hunger overcame any worries we had about the safety of our truck, which was insured, so even less concern.

Two bites into dinner and the lights go off. “That’ll be Benny, taken out a power pole” Joske joked. Laughs all round. Candles issued and eating continued. Five minutes later Benny staggers into the bar.

“You’re not going to believe what just happened”. He was driving down a dirt road, turned the wheel to go around a corner, and “nothing happened!?” Nothing that is until a spit second later when the truck slammed head-on into a power pole, snapped the pole in half, wrote off the truck and trashed several boards, including a couple of mine. He then got out of the truck – stepping carefully over the live wires surrounding it and walked back to the camp. So ended day number one.

We had to organise a police statement for insurance the next day, and had another SUV sent down so we could continue our trip. Needless to say the waves were pumping that day and we didn’t get a wave in.

We stayed at Lobos for a couple of days getting awesome 4-5 foot waves. Its a set up a bit like Lennox Head in reverse, and the inside bank was cracking with only a few of us on it!

We headed off mid morning on the 4th day down the coast, about 4 hours to Constitucion, a town torn apart by the tsunami that followed the earthquake. It was shocking to drive along the coastline and see the destruction it had caused.

We arrived just before dark and surfed a spot in front of a huge rock with a cave straight through the middle of it. The cave was home to thousands of birds and a seal colony. It was a surreal experience and we called the wave “Big Rocks”.

After an epic session at Big Rocks we had about another hour and a half to drive to go before arriving in Curanipe, which is a small country town with a cozy little village feel. We had arranged to stay at a friends house which turned out to be an epic joint, two stories with a deck that looked out over a below sea-level left point.

sany0047

We spent the rest of our trip at Curanipe, driving back up to Constitucion every couple of days to surf another point we found that was like Macaroni’s, but three times longer – so we called it Spaghetti’s.

On the way to Spaghetti’s this one day, we spotted another spot from the highway and checked it out. It was like snapper in reverse. It was kegging through the inside and was littered with huge rocks. We got straight out there and it was perfect 4-6 foot. Benny got a big set and pulled in through the inside, he ended up getting pitched onto the rocks and ‘Ten Pinned’ all the way down the point so we named it ‘Bowling Balls’ and Benny got a perfect strike!

We surfed these couple of waves we had found for the next couple of days, and looked forward to the last two days which on the maps was showing to be the biggest of all the swell we’d had so far. It was showing about 10-15 foot of swell which left us with the dilemma of which perfect point would we surf. Benny was giggling the whole time, screaming “Its going to be pumping!!! OMG its going to be the best surf you’ve ever seeen!!!”

We checked out a few towns and got into the local cuisine. The food was awesome, and the towns left quite an impression on us for the ability they had to pick them selves up after such a disaster and just get on with it!

The swell arrived as expected and we spent the day trying to figure out where to surf as it was a little to big for the points.

One spot offered us a pretty good surf with us spending most the session getting belted. Benny jagged the wave of the day and was frothing at the bit!

Benny C

After seeing that the waves were too solid for most of the spots, we told Benny he wasn’t aloud to say the waves were going to be ‘the best we’ve ever seen’ anymore, out of fear he was jinxing it (and cause we were all jealous he got a sick keg and we didn’t).  We found a weird looking wave that arvo just before dark which looked promising for the next morning, which was to be our last day.

We woke the next day to find absolute perfection. Two points side by side, doing their own version of Burleigh Heads in reverse. We headed straight out there and spent the next 4-5 hours getting pitted out of our brains. I snapped my board on my second wave and as I was changing boards, Joske got the first Bomb of the day and was kegged from start to finish, which by the way was about 150 meters. I frothed and got straight back out there to get the best left kegs I’ve ever had and Joske, Riley and Benny all said the same thing !!

Joske