Back in August the crew at Erebus Wetsuits gave us a call looking to photoshoot their new range of wetsuits on King Island. Like most groups do, the guys at Erebus asked “When is the surf going to be pumping at Martha? we’ll book it then…” As I say to most people, “Just lock in a date now we will find you some good waves somewhere on the island.” So they did, and low and behold it coincided with a good size swell.
I meet up with the local team (Lachie Kerney, Darcy Day, Jonny Teague and Ed Sloane the photog) at Barwon Heads Airport, the guys were super stoked to be going over, a couple of the lads had already visited King Island many years ago so they were excited to go back.
Style master Darcy Day with Jonny T watching on the shoulder and Ed Sloane getting the in water shot.
The guys planned to have 3 days shooting at a few different locations exploring around the island. Flying over to King Island late afternoon we coped a fairly nasty cold front that hit us mid flight but we could see the swell was building quickly, landing and unloading the boards at the airport was typical KI style cold, wet and windy style - Welcome to King Island guys!
A lot of photoshoots I've been part of there is normally a lot preparing, setting up, waiting around, and bossy creative / photographer types than there is actually surfing. But thankfully the Erebus team were far less fussy and more keen of getting some good waves and having a great time than they were about getting the perfectly constructed shot. Schedule out the window we first set off to try and score one of the islands rarest and best kept secret waves and instead managed to get ourselves bogged for 3 hours on the way. We finally got the 4WD out of the muddy bog with 10 minutes left of daylight, no time to suit up we could only watch through the 3ft barrels draining along the sand with the high beams on our 4WD. The next day the winds shifted NW so we headed down south to Red Hut beach track and Ed got some great shots of the lads surfing from in the water with some beautiful afternoon light shots.
Day 3 we got some mix surfing and lifestyle shots around Phoques beach and other parts of the island but unfortunately the surf was slightly onshore and didn’t cooperate for great surfing photos.
Kicking back that evening frothing on some of Ed’s shots we checked the swell and wind forecast… a big swell with SW winds due to hit the day after we were leaving. All the boys were keen to stay on the extra day so they rang their bosses and girlfriends to extend their leave passes by a day. Darcy had a pile of surfboard shaping orders mounting up so he couldn’t stay on unfortunately, Ed had to go back for a wedding shoot, fortunately we had a plane flying back over early the next morning so Ed could jump onboard and fly to Barwon Heads, shoot the wedding that night, jump back on the plane first thing in the morning and make it back to shoot pumping Martha the next day - Sorted.
As we waved farewell to Ed and Darcy. Jonny, Lachie and I were looking forward to scoring Martha’s the next morning. Waking up at dawn we headed up North Road straight to Martha, it wasn’t as big as we’d hoped but still looking pretty damn fun at 3ft. As we were suiting up we saw Ed flying over head on his way back… “shit, who’s going to the airport to pick him up?” We pretended not to see him and all went for a quick session before someone draw the short straw to go collect him from the airport. While we were in the water we saw an old beaten up Manga struggling to drive up the sand dunes along Martha’s 4WD tracks… Sure enough it was Ed. He’d found himself a ride and along with him was young Torquay local boy Xavier Huxtable who jumped onboard for the day. The crew back to together we scored a fun sized day at Martha with plenty of laughs along the way and got a few photos to boot.
Thanks to all for crew coming along and the guys at Erebus Wetsuits - was an absolute pleasure showing them around.
For those of you in the market for a new wettie the guy’s at Erebus have kindly offered all our guests and friends 15% off their entire range. The price is already great value so add 15% off and free shipping and you got yourself an awesome deal on an awesome winter wetsuit! I’ve been wearing their Ultimate 4/3 steamer this winter and its by far one of the best suits I’ve ever owned. Check’em out at www.erebuswetsuits.com.au bloody amazing suits at a great price. Keep up the good work guys.
