One Wave is a Life’s Work
Chris Lougher is still in his wetsuit as he perches on the cliffs above Deadman’s and tries to pull himself together. A few minutes earlier he’d dragged himself from the water, coughing blood and shaken after a heavy wipeout. Only the day before he’d slapped so hard on the wave face of a set, he came up from the ensuing hold down concussed and blurry-eyed.
It wasn’t supposed to play out like this.
At 34, the wiry-framed natural-footer from Curl Curl (he has the word Curl tattooed on either wrist) had spent the best part of 20 years chasing glory at Deadman’s. Despite a lifetime infatuation he still didn’t have a wave out there he was happy to put his name to. Although driven more by personal dissatisfaction than ego, it niggled him that many of his Northern Beaches peers had chalked one up at ‘Deadies’ and had the photographic evidence to prove it.
This was going to be the moment where everything clicked – light winds, optimal swell direction, and none of the heavy weather typically associated with Deadman’s sessions – and Chris was better prepared than ever. In the week leading up to the swell, Chris was in the pool performing a sequence of breathing and training drills he’d learned while working as a lifeguard in England. The confidence-building techniques had been passed on by a Kiwi guy, who had in turn borrowed them from his brother, who was a former Olympic swimmer.
The day before the muscular lines from the intense, east coast low began showing up in Sydney, Chris cooked the food he would need to sustain him over the course of the swell. Time spent with Greg Long had taught him to take his diet seriously, while a bad case of food poisoning – mid-swell in Mexico – had made him wary of eating out when the waves were on. This time he was leaving nothing to chance. He planned to snack on fruit and nuts between sessions, but when the giants had been slayed and the adrenalin levels normalised, there would be a hearty, pre-made chicken risotto waiting for him to fill the void and fuel him for the day to come.
In the weeks prior to the east coast low Chris had been roaming Australia on the whim of wind and swell. COVID restrictions had eventually soured his capricious sojourn, but not before he rode a roaring offshore bommie in South Oz alongside Heath Joske and underground cult figure, Geoff Goulden, aka Camel. The first day of the swell Chris paddled a mile over the sharky trench – alone. On day two
