Photo: Ben Gravy // YouTube
Ben Gravy joined up with Jacob Szekely to chase down the ferry wave to end all ferry waves. Off a tip from the La Jolla native, Gravy and company trekked to Oregon to ride what the pair have now dubbed “the biggest and best ferry wave in history.”
The ride didn’t come easy though. On the way over, Gravy seemed unsure if it would happen at all. “A lot of stuff may have just changed,” he explained. “We’ve been kind of putting the feelers out for the ferry wave. It was really really hard to lock down a jet ski, but I think we locked down a jet ski. It was really really hard to figure out if we were actually going to do this, but this might happen.”
That was no exaggeration. As Gravy and Szekely latelater recounted, while standing in the pre-dawn darkness before the session, this wave in particular was nearly a half decade in the making. Szekely had first heard rumors of the man-made wake around five years ago, and planning in earnest began three years ago. Even then, they arrived to the site without a clear picture of where exactly they were supposed to find this mythical ripple.
In the end though, persistence paid off. Gravy and Szekely were rewarded with what they are calling the best ferry wave on the west coast. “We did it, there’s not really much to say,” concluded Gravy afterwards. “Cruising on my eight-footer, just absolutely enjoying the beautiful glassy Pacific Northwestern bay,” he continued. “Ferry waves, Three to five [feet], light winds, perfect conditions. If this spot was on Surfline, it would have gone good to epic.”
