(This feature originally appeared in the September 2013  issue of Windsurf Magazine. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE.)

Our boat is punching into a stiff south easterly breeze 35 kilometres off the coast of Cairns in Queensland, Australia. 

Myself, Ian Fox, Sean O’Brien and Luke Baillie are taking shelter from the spray in the cabin while our skipper, Cameron McLeod, steers his trusty vessel through the shallow coral reef passes as we close in on our destination. 

Feature John Carter and Sean O’Brien Photos John Carter

High overhead, broken clouds shield us from the blazing sun. A slight worry, but hopefully it’ll clear up later when we get down to business. At last we spot a tiny sandbar poking out of the azure blue water and we anchor up close to the shore as Cameron dares to venture. Finally we’re on the verge of pulling of a vague plan that initiated over six months ago. We’ve made it to Vlasoff Cay on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and now its down to the weather Gods to shine down on us to complete this mission.

REWIND
It all started back on a photo shoot in Western Australia last February, when Australian slalom racer Sean O’Brien mentioned he was heading out to the Australian Slalom Nationals at Green Island off the coast of Cairns. The event was being supported by Qantas, which triggered the crazy idea that, with a little persuasion, perhaps they could extend their budget to include a ticket from the UK to allow Yours Truly to attend?

I was more than happy to shoot the event, but had another bigger plan to somehow capture windsurfing on the Great Barrier Reef – one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. I had no idea how we could achieve this goal, but most likely it would have to involve a helicopter and a few crazy windsurfers willing to follow one of my sketchy plans.

Cue the involvement of event organizer Ian Fox, who set about negotiations with the airline and seemed to be on the same wavelength as me regarding the dream to shoot the reef from up above. Some weeks later I received a Skype message from Foxy reading something along the lines of ‘Mark your planner buddy. You’re on the way to the Great Barrier Reef!’

Three months later I was all aboard a Qantas Airbus A380 bound for Sydney via Dubai and then on up to Cairns two days before the start of the event.

Due to the complexities of running the Nationals we were pretty much locked into doing this shoot the day before the event whatever the weather would deliver. Not the easiest challenge – and one that’d certainly test the limits of our planning. And our luck.

THE REEF
Located in the Coral Sea off the coast of Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef runs some 2600 kilometers along the coast, is longer than the Great Wall of China and the only living thing on earth visible from space! The reef starts just off the coast of Bundaberg and stretches up to the tip of Cape York towards New Guinea running between 15 and 150 km off the coastline and up to 65 km wide.

It boasts over 400 species of coral, 200 different birds and over 1500 types of tropical fish. Back in 1770 Captain Cook sailed the entire length of the reef in his ship the Endeavour and spent six weeks repairing his ship in Cooktown after running aground on what is now known as Endeavour Reef. Now it was our turn to make history and be the first to windsurf in this pristine marine location.

Our target within this massive expanse of marine beauty was a tiny sandy atoll known as Vlasoff Cay. Surrounded by the magnificent Arlington Reef and stunning turquoise water, this tiny sand bar was nothing short of paradise. It took all the skill of Cameron to navigate us close to the Island, especially with the lowest tide of the year forecast due to the gravitational pull of a ‘Super Moon’ right on the day of our planned shoot.

The exposed sand was probably 100 meters long by 5 wide and it was surreal stepping foot upon this island over 35 kilometers off the coast of the mainland and only sharing the place with a couple of birds. Within a few hours the tide was set to drop by around 3 metres, which would expose much of the surrounding reef and leave us stranded if we couldn’t manage the positioning of the boat correctly.

The crew set about rigging up while I went for a quick stroll round the island (which took about one minute!). Next up was the issue of launching. With the tide racing out, the nearby reef was already starting to look exposed, but somehow the boys would have to sail out without totalling their fins.

Once everybody was out on the water, I second guessed they had no intention of coming back due to the perilously shallow water so I was left marooned on the island to contemplate the next part of the plan alone. Ian Fox had been through meticulous planning to bring this whole quest together and according to his schedule, a helicopter was supposed to arrive and pick me up bang on 2pm.

Sure enough, at 13.50, I could hear the distinctive noise of rotors whirring in the sky and within minutes I was no longer alone on my little island. With everything in place we were pretty much set for our shoot, aside from one tiny little matter – the weather.

Overhead much of the high cloud had broken up, but in turn had made way for thick low cloud to sweep in from out to sea. Darn it! There seemed to be one huge funnel of cloud stretching for miles out, heading all the way to the mainland and right over our heads.

Our pilot, Ian Ditchforth, was super patient with me while I procrastinated what to do next. For the next half hour I spent most of the time looking upwards looking for some sort of break in the clouds. Finally a pocket of blue sky opened up and without further ado it was game on at last. I’ll hand things over to Sean O’Brien here for his side of the story down on the water.

SEAN O’BRIEN
‘It seemed like an eternity standing on the sandy spit of Vlasoff Cay with JC, waiting for the chopper and watching the water rapidly recede from the reef. In the hour that we’d spent on the sand, rigging and preparing our heli-shoot game plan, the water had dropped close to 1m.

This part of Australia has huge 3m tides and, with a super moon and the winter equinox all in the same weekend, our mission was staged around the biggest tides possible. The low tide was approaching at 14.30 p.m., the lowest of the low.

The 50m sand spit quickly becoming a kilometre long sand spit with rock and reef outcrops. This amazing stretch of reef and pristine waters only exposes to this extent a few times a year and, if you drove a boat here a few hours later, it would just be dark blue waters, the beauty hidden underwater like the lost city of Atlantis.

It was amazing to think that the only reason we were here, was because our boat captain, Cam, had by chance driven past this reef on a king low tide a few years prior, discovering this hidden gem which may have been submerged for the rest of the year in deeper waters.

The heli landed, which was my cue to hit the water. 30 minutes prior I could’ve sailed straight off the beach. Now I had to walk my gear 200m and negotiate a plethora of razor reefs and rocks.

Foxy, then Luke, hit the water before me, looking for a decent sized run in between all the coral bombies, but close enough to the sandspit to make the shots spectacular. Luckily for us, the clouds were keeping JC amused and the heli remained on the beach giving us a few extra minutes to explore the catacombs of reefs and plan our route.

Foxy had a plan to shoot the three of us in a staggered line to show off the sails, and then a “Mighty Ducks” style flying-V, emulating our Severne Sails boomerang logo. Nothing out of the ordinary, however in this particular part of the reef, the shallowest coral was positioned so that we’d have to run upwind, then sharply downwind, then upwind again before we could get a straight run of half a nautical mile, a perfect chicane before hitting the back straight – rev the engines!

The reef was bone dry on these bombies and the gaps between them were as little as 30m, meaning three guys at full tilt in 25 knots heading upwind, downwind, upwind had to really communicate and be aware of our peripherals or else one of us would’ve stacked the reef (35 km downwind from the nearest hospital that can cut coral out of your skull is still a long way, even by helicopter!).

Our chosen sails were 7.5, 7.0, 6.5 2014 NCX no-cam freeride sails. Super comfortable however, feeling gung-ho, I opted for the biggest sail with my iSonic 110 and, within 30 seconds of being on the water, I’d wrecked on the reef and shaved my 42cm fin down to a 40.5cm, chipping the back of my finbox (not the best thing to do the day before your National Championships!)

I didn’t want to let that deter me though and in our formation I stayed on the bottom, Ian the middle and Luke the top, confidently sailing inches away from the shallowest sections of reef each flyby we made – surely that would make the best photos?

I have amazing respect for helicopter pilots. It was a fascinating experience to be hurtling at 70 km/h downwind, your fin the only thing gripping you to the water, memorizing the route around the reefs so you can turn your head behind you and smile up at the camera, a helicopter buzzing less than 30m from your leech, only meters from the water and travelling ‘sideways’, to give JC the best shot out of the side-doors.

As the chopper perilously closed in on us, you could increasingly feel the water dispersing out from your equipment, the leech starting to flutter with the downdraft coming against the wind direction and the extreme noise of the rotors. At times the rig felt like it would tear out of your hands and sheer to pieces, the rotor noise made it impossible to yell to Luke and Foxy that we were too close or not giving me enough room to avoid the reef!

JC
Midway through the shoot Foxy gave us the nod to head over to Green Island for the second phase of his plan. For fun, he wanted to share some heli time with the event guys too. As the crow flies, Green Island was around 6 miles to the south and in the helicopter we were treated to awesome views of Arlington Reef before heading across deep blue water before reaching the reefs around Green Island.

Due to strict laws that protect the National Park, we were only allowed to hover 500m outside the reef at Green Island, but even from this distance, we could see many of the competitors warming up in the surrounding lagoons.

By the time I was back at Vlasoff the tide was pretty much bang on the lowest possible and as we circled above the dark patches of reef contrasting amongst the crystal clear water while our crew raced through pit stops re-rigging and switching boards sails for some individual product shots for their sponsors.

We scored a few clear runs chasing patches of brilliant sunlight up and down that luminous blue lagoon before the next surprise – it actually started to rain. At that stage, with some magic in the bag and long hours on the heli, the time had come to call it a day.

Gladly, rather than land and switch back to the boat, I enjoyed the heli ride back to Cairns airport, while the boys packed up and ploughed back upwind against a heavy swell in Cam’s boat. Safely back at base, but now locked out of my hotel room I realized my keys – along with the rest of my kit – were somewhere out there, a speck of white in that endless sea of blue, bashing their way home through that chop.

SEAN O’ BRIEN
Luckily, my fin was the only carnage for the day despite the array of enormous sea turtles we spotted enjoying the shallow waters close to the reef and knowing the volume of sharks that patrol these waters.

There were times when I turned around and it looked like JC was literally going to fall out of the chopper – the angles he was flying at were so acute! It was a picture-perfect day, the sun giving us small windows of glamorous radiance, but enough to get the shots.

Before long the familiar buzz of the heli had disappeared over the horizon, our window with JC behind the lens expired and it was time to head back upwind to the anchored the boat and to derig all the sails before the tide came back in.

Words cannot describe the experience we had skimming over those reefs in that clearest of clear water. Sharing the beauty below our feet, the incredible fish species, the coral, the sheer magnitude of the reef and knowing the dangers, the sharks, the turtles, the savage reef, the shifting tides – this was a once-in-a-lifetime session.

It really rang true to me on the boat ride home as we trucked upwind through the steep swells, thrashing about in the back of the boat stacked with gear for an hour just to make it back to Green Island (30km offshore), before we could catch the ferry back to the mainland.

Queensland is my home, I was born and bred there and have explored much of the southern parts of the reef despite it being my first time to the northern parts here in Cairns. It’s a stark change. The water is clearer up here and with the migrating whales in winter you get the impression there is a lot more sealife (albeit a lot more sharks!)

It was a long day of multiple boat rides, rigging on sand or even in the water and submerged hazards like I’d never seen before, but for each of us it was an incredible experience that we’ll certainly all never forget.

Special thanks to GBR Helicopters.

THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I TURNED AROUND AND IT LOOKED LIKE JC WAS LITERALLY GOING TO FALL OUT OF THE CHOPPER