Four British kayakers spent April 2003 in Tahiti-iti, surfing a wide variety of different reefbreaks in purpose-built surf kayaks. Steve Childs, Tim Denson, Nathan Eades and Bill Mattos were privileged to be able to surf the fearsome Teahupo'o, a very scary wave which has been called the heaviest wave in the world, and breaks onto barely submerged coral . It wasn't without its problems, and it wasn't too pretty, but they were the first kayakers to do it.

The boys went there with the guidance of top local surfers, who also showed them awesome secret spots that have never graced the pages of magazines in the way that Teahupo'o so often does. And, we're not going to tell you where they are, either. But there's the odd pic of one or two of them on this site. Like the one above. Beautiful, isn't it?

On a personal note, they'd like to share their respect for the awesome Tahitian surfers, who ride waves like Teahupo'o on bigger days than we ever will, any time they feel like it. Foreign pro surfers get all the fame and glory, but the local guys did it all first. They surfed Teahupo'o ten years before the rest of the world discovered it. We saw them tow into it on a 5m swell, whereas we found it almost unmanageable over 2m!

For more info about the trip, click this link

or to go back to the front page click the logo below