On July 24, off the coast of Indonesia, onlookers cheered as a boat rode (and eventually capsized to) some crazy waves. (It's ok to hit 'play,' the boat was unmanned.)
Ryan "Chachi" Craig of Surfer.com reports:
It was absolutely crazy. I was swimming and shooting photos and the currents were heavy so I only saw it from the back and saw it drifting into the lineup. There's so much water moving today–there are palm trees and tree stumps in the lineup. I swam by numerous pieces of wood with nails sticking out of them. The water is like black out there.
Anyways, the swell is really, really big and that boat is anchored in the same spot every day so I assumed it's always there, anchored in deep water in the keyhole where everyone jumps in. Not sure whose boat it is, but it was even there during the last swell, which was much smaller than today.
This morning when we woke up, a lot of people were tripping out that they (whoever owns the boat) didn't move it because the swell is supposed to grow. I've actually been using it as a marker for where I was in the lineup. It was that close to the wave. Eventually, around mid-morning, it lost its anchor or whatever and started drifting into the lineup. Everyone started paddling away with some determination to get anywhere they could other than where the impact zone was, because if a bigger set came and everyone got caught inside there would've been a really bad situation.
Then it just got sucked in. That wasn't even a set wave and it still obviously just got destroyed. The lips are legit 6 feet thick out there right now."
(digg)
