Behind The Cover

On the 11th Of February at approximately 12:13PM spawned by the fury of a tropical depression hundreds of kilometres out to sea, a gigantic lump of water made its way toward the East Coast of NZ, honing in on a relatively small piece of rock slab off the coast of the Mahia Peninsula. While there had been some monumental waves ridden at this reef dubbed ‘Big Brother’ several timed over the last eight years, nothing had ever been seen so large and angry as this lump of water.

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Sam ‘Sanga’ Willis was hinged to the end of a rope, being towed by his partner on the ski Blair Stewart, and when Blair laid eyes on that thing, he immediately knew this was not normal, screaming for Sanga not to go! Yet Sanga had other ideas and felt he had put in the years of training and commitment in chasing these types of waves that this was his calling. He let go of that rope and what happened over the next 10 seconds inside of that mutant beast changed surfing in NZ forever! The entire story of this session can be read about in ‘The Awakening’ on page ?? yet there were other stories that transpired before and after this wave that stamped their marks on this historical session. The day before Sanga found himself stranded in the Hakes Bay at one point seriously looking like missing this forecast gigantic swell altogether, and was trying to work out a way to get up to Gizzy, he missed the only bus out, and was about to start hitching when our Editor pulled pin on his plan to head to the Coromandel and was heading back from South Hawkes Bay, that he pulled in and picked up his brother for a reunion of the boys chasing slabs. During the drive north Sanga made the comment that he hoped the swell was big enough for Big Brother as he didn’t want to surf the Spit, as he had b