That Time Dane Reynolds Went Off Like C4 Plastic Explosive!

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Surfing with Dane in Mexico was wild. That’s the standout surfing I remember most from the past few years. We went down there for a week to shoot a Quiksilver campaign and what he was doing to the waves down there… man, to this day it is the best surfing I have seen with my own two eyes. It was similar to all that stuff that’s in his Marine Layer film, Seen and Unseen. He was surfing a pretty odd shaped Merrick which had a drawn-in tail, like a fish, and it had a twin fin set-up with a stabiliser. We were surfing waist-to-shoulder high waves and that board was like C4 plastic explosive. When he paddled into a wave it was like someone had lit a fuse and every off-the-top was a bomb going off. He was just freaking destroying waves with this non-stop manic explosiveness.

There was one surf in particular at one of the first points coming back from Salina Cruz… dude, I kid you not… he just tore it to pieces, tiny, tiny, shredded up pieces of wave dust. He would do combos like big spinners and fin ditches with power straight into wrap-arounds and 360s then he’d get barrelled. On-rail destruction followed by airs and nose picks and all this zany unthinkable radness. Complete surfing from start to finish. You couldn’t have had better conditions for him. It looked like Snapper but with no one out. He was taking off behind the rock and just going to another town. In a different reality. I was barely able to watch. It was that mental.

He was modest and humble about it in the water too. I’d be like, “Duuuuuuude! That wave was insane!” And he’d be like. “Yeah, it’s pretty fun.” We did walk arounds all day and there was literally nobody around. Funnest right point ever and nobody to share it with. It was bizarre. I think Quiksilver used it on one of their campaigns. It was just me and Dane. I was absolutely tripping.

“On-rail destruction followed by airs and nose picks and all this zany unthinkable radness. Complete surfing from start to finish.”

Of course the problem with surfing with someone who’s that on fire is you start to wonder what you’re doing out there. I didn’t want to stand up on my surfboard after watching all that carnage. I was taking off on my backhand after watching Dane’s waves and thinking… “Hmmmn… I got no idea what I’m supposed to do right now!” So yeah, I just watched for most of that session haha! I mean, those Mexican points are fun on your backhand but I have always preferred going left. If there were left points like the ones we were surfing I’d have freaked out. It is just so perfect for taking your surfing to another place. Warm water, sandy bottoms, pretty much the mini Snapper kinda vibe with all these fun racy points but with nobody around.

Getting back to Dane though, the thing that really blew me away was the mix of power and flow, from rail to fin-ditch with no awkward body movements or bogs in between, it just looked like such a well put together surf. Every wave was surfed perfectly. I didn’t see him fall off once. That board he was on… I think it had to be a magic one. It was such a weird fishy kinda board that looked like a teardrop but with a pulled in swallow. He said he had never had one that went like that.

I can’t really remember what we did after that session. I don’t think we went out and celebrated or anything like that. We probably just had lunch and cruised. I dunno if we even surfed again. But that hour and a half that we did surf and what I saw Dane do in that time… man, it was really cool. – Craig Anderson