Photo: Nathan Florence // YouTube
“If my leg gets caught, I’m dead,” is a thought you never really want rolling around in your head during a paddle-out. However, that’s exactly what Nathan Florence thought to himself during a recent expedition to an especially sketchy Irish slab.
“Looking like it’s going to be a very epic day,” narrated Florence, shortly before embarking on the mission with brother Ivan in tow. “We have a fairly large swell filling in. Winds are not predicted to be that good, but a lot of coastline to explore, so we’re going to do some looking around. Ideally, if that swell fills in and gets big enough, we’ll be on the big boards, surfing some real heavy stuff.”
The end of that statement turned out to be prophetic. As Ivan described afterwards, the pair was met with hazards both in and out of the water. From a long walk down a cliff, to a treacherous paddle-out over shifting boulders, to the actual slab itself, seemingly everything out there was trying to kill them. To Nathan, though, that’s all just part of the fun. “The whole thing, the wave, the cliffs, the paddle out, make it just a thrilling experience,” he explained.
All in a day’s work.
