Adaptive Surfers Ride Remote Vancouver Island Wave in Forward Documentary
adaptive Athletes Pioneer Surf Session at Remote Vancouver Island Wave
Clay March, Kai Colless and Victoria Feige are believed to be the first adaptive athletes to surf a remote wave off vancouver Island’s West Coast. Their expedition was captured in the new feature length surf and ski documentary Forward, which is currently making the rounds in the international film fest circuit.
“The point break we surfed was pretty great, especially after getting hammered in the shore breaks,” said Clay. “If you want to make an analogy to skiing, it’s kind of like resort skiing to backcountry skiing – after skiing in the backcountry you never want to go back to the resort.”
[Image of Kai Colless with gloves, caption: Kai Colless brought out the gloves for this one. Olli Dickerson / Forward]
Clay, who was born with cerebral palsy, was supported in the water by his triplet brother Tanner.
“We got spoiled,” says Tanner. “Clay loves the big waves. The bigger the better. It’s just if we can paddle out and if we can do it safely, so having the opportunity to do the boat trip and experience a point break for the first time together was pretty ground breaking for us and what we learned we’re capable of.”
“We usually have a pretty intense support team that helps us in the whitewash and to reroute while we are getting hammered,but ther we could just ride off the wave and go straight back out and catch the next one. Clay barely got wet. It was pretty epic,” tanner continues.
[Image of Clay March dropping into the water with assistance from his mother, caption: Clay March drops into the water with a gentle push from mom Joanne. Olli Dickerson / Forward]
Scoring the remote wave was kismet for Clay, Tanner and the Forward film crew. With a slight 10-day window scheduled to shoot the surf action in Tofino, B.C., the boat trip was a dream that serendipitously came true thanks to canadian surf icon Mathea Dempfle-Olin.
“She really held the keys to the break,” says Tanner. “Mathea, along with the local surf community, have a deep connection to that wave. It’s a place that’s looked after carefully, and being invited into that space meant a lot. There’s definitely a lot of respect at the break, along with a culture and unspoken etiquette, it’s not somewhere you just show up.”
Team Canada’s Victoria Feige, a six time ISA World Title holder in women’s kneel and dual American-Canadian citizen, journeyed from her home on the North Shore of Oa