Jonathan Gubbins is usually out surfing somewhere the rest of us wish we could be. Remote, world-class waves. Rinse and repeat. He lists off a few of the destinations that connected his 2022 travels to his 2023 itinerary, and they all fit the bill: catching the tail end of a 2022 Teahupo’o that lit up the internet. Sprinkle in plans for Skeleton Bay and Desert Point. You get the picture. But then a swell caught his eye that would take him to South America and a wave he’d never surfed before.
“Super cold, 5/4 wetsuits, strong localism, but great people and the waves are amazing,” he told The Inertia. A “Skeleton Bay look alike,” as he puts it, that only turns on in very specific windows. To add to the intrigue (and challenge), he adds it’s not exactly a place you want to surf without first reaching out to a local pro like Erik ”Chuncho” Bustos or Luis Mella Medina first.
What Gubbins strolled into with it all was an endless supply of barreling lefts — the Skeleton Bay lookalike he described. And while coldwater waves weren’t really a focus before, he says this one added some interest in traveling to more places that require a bit of neoprene.
“For me, cold water now will be an option around the globe,” he says, with at least three more destinations on his radar for 2023 now. And yes, they’re all the kind of waves you’d see plastered on a magazine cover. Some things don’t need to change.
