All photos: Brian Nevins

Mike Gleason: Sam and I have been through so much shit trying to get this wave. It’s been a long, hard road, and I can’t tell you how many miles we’ve put on that Suburban, spinning it into ditches, almost dying, or driving 40 hours to not even surf. But Sam’s knowledge is just incredible. Not only in the ways he can read forecasts and maps and charts, but also his ability to read waves. There’s no one else I’d rather have by my side in a situation like this.

Brian Nevins: A small group of local chargers beat us to finding this spot, then a bunch of old fishermen/surfers put me onto it, so it’s been on my radar for 15 years. I had to put all my faith as a forecaster, a wave chaser, a photographer and an adult to get here — then all my trust into Sam, Frankie and Mike to be cognitive of how precious it is to the locals. I can’t begin to explain the pressure that went with that. I actually had to become a photographer first before those guys would even come up here with me [laughs].

Mark Willis, Surfline Chief Meteorologist: In all honesty, it wasn’t all that great of a swell. The guys were actually interested in another spot for this event — there are a lot of incredible waves up there. But Sam was so impressed the first time he surfed here a year ago, he wanted to figure out why it was so special, so he reached out. He had all the right intuition, I just confirmed what he was already thinking. It’s exciting to me as a weather nerd and as a surf fan to hear someone like Sam Hammer call a spot “the heaviest wave on the East Coast.” Video: Joe Carter

Mike Gleason: I went into this trip with a different mentality. Physically my body was ready, but I needed to get my mind ready. A couple days prior I was being really quiet, just kept to myself, collecting my thoughts and wrapping my head around what I wanted to do out there. Because it’s the real deal. It’s about as heavy of a wave as I’ve ever surfed. It's easy to be in the wrong spot and miss the ones you want, some are paddleable, some aren’t... I had a 6’1” and was kicking myself that I didn’t have something bigger. But as soon as we rolled up and saw one spit, it didn’t take us long to get in the water.

Balaram Stack: I’ve dreamed about doing a trip like this for so long, and I'm so psyched it finally worked out. I was always away and never able to go before, but I would rather travel with Hammer and Gleason to find waves on the East Coast over anything else I could do, because I grew up learning so much from them. Still to this day, Sammy and Mike push each other so hard. And being with them when they’re all fired up like that is awesome; you don’t see those two guys freaking out very often.

Sam Hammer: It’s a daunting, intimidating wave, just because of the way it moves. There’s so much water moving over a big playing field of very deep water, and it just converges from three different sides to one enclosed spot. You have to take off behind the peak to get tubed, and it’s below sea level when you’re dropping in, so you’re just staring at reef. Large creatures lurk under the water, but you’re not even worried about them because you’re so focused on the wave. It’s fascinating. It's beautiful.

Balaram Stack: It’s legit, a really heavy wave with a lot of variables and the feeling of some big fish swimming around. The fact that it was such a nice day out made everything a lot easier — so blue and clean and glassy, no wind, 70 degrees — something you never really see on the East Coast. It was plenty big, but I can’t imagine what this place would look like on a real-deal swell. It would be next-level shit, as good as any wave in the world.

Mike Gleason: We took Seth Stafford up there once — three days of sleeping in the car, stinking, boat problems and never surfing. At the end of it, Seth said, “Guys, I love you, but I will never go back up there with you again” [laughs]. So for years it was just me and Sam, but all those trips took a toll on us, where we wouldn’t even talk to each other, totally angry from getting skunked. So we started inviting other friends along, and that’s when we realized the benefit of having fresh energy on the trip, a new spark. When you bring new life into something, it kinda gives it more life, y’know?

Mark Willis: Last September, they scored the same spot on a three-foot swell, it was well overhead and their minds were blown by the power of the wave. That’s when Sam reached out to me to look at the bathymetry. We were really impressed, to say the least, about what’s going on underneath the ocean there. The spot’s a bit offshore, so it’s really exposed to wind and super finicky to tide. The tides up there are some of the most extreme in the world, so they didn’t have a lot of daylight to work with. Luckily, the winds were light all day.

Mike Gleason: It's crazy: super heavy, super shallow and just a giant horseshoe. There’s no wave I’ve surfed that I could compare it to. It’s not a perfect wave by any means, and it’s very difficult to ride, but there are gems out there. There were moments where we were like, “Man, we’re really at the right place at the right time.” I only made one or two, but I did pull into one that was the biggest wave I’ve ever pulled into on the East Coast.

Sam Hammer: If the locals hadn’t told us about it I never would’ve looked at this spot in a million years. There were a few swells years ago where we looked at it, but there was no way we could paddle out. Surfing it for the second time on a different swell, bigger but with a smaller period, was a totally different experience. It changes so fast. By the time you get comfortable, it’s throwing a whole different look at you.

Brian Nevins: It was awesome watching Balaram [Stack, pictured] reap the benefits of this during the peak of his career. Last time I saw him was in Lido years ago, and he was just a little squirt back then. Now he’s a big, ripped dude with tattoos and is just the f***ing man. He is the best surfer I have ever seen out of the Northeast, by a billion times, and he literally stopped me from breathing a couple times watching him go on that ledge. We’re all really proud of that kid… uh, man.

Timmy Reyes: I had just gotten back from the Primes over in Europe, got my luggage at customs and dodged my connecting flight back home. So it was by chance that I was even on the East Coast, and my first two phone calls were to Sammy and Mike. They like the same kind of waves I like, so I figured we'd mesh pretty well. Me and Sammy have had some amazing sessions together throughout our careers, but I honestly couldn’t even tell you where this is. There was a lot of driving involved, and I could never go back by myself and find it. Video: Joe Carter

Timmy Reyes: It’s interesting, kinda like a mixture of The Box and Backdoor with a Wedge backwash. There’s just so many things happening. You really have to pay attention and watch every single wave before you take off, because you don’t know if a ten-foot backwash is coming at you. These guys have been paddling it properly for a while, and they asked me what I thought of it. I told them it’s a real, legitimate wave. But it’s a beatdown. You get really pounded.

Brian Nevins: It took us all this time, but we figured it out almost after the fact. I wish Mike and Sam would've had this earlier in their careers. Now we go there not even caring anymore. We just roll the dice and whatever happens is okay. We all have a really good time together instead of being super anxious about scoring. And we haven’t said a word about where it is. We just say, “There’s a wave.” It’s all about the desire to find it, the adventure of getting there and the vindication that this wave actually exists. After being shut down so many times before, we’ve remained into it for a reason.

Sam Hammer: Hearing other people’s perspective on the wave is important. I’ve done stuff with Balaram [Stack, pictured] in the past, and I trust him to keep a secret. I just tell him, “I’ll tell you what I know and what I don’t know. Just don’t share it with other people. That’s all I ask.” He gets it. And Timmy Reyes, wherever he goes he’s usually charging crazy waves by himself, so you just take his word for it, because he's in this stuff all the time. We just get to do it sporadically.

Mark Willis: A lot of special waves around the world have similar characteristics: really shallow water extending, surrounded by deep water on both sides. That’s exactly what goes on here: very shallow contours extending seaward, and very deep water on the north and south sides. Anywhere in the world, that combination promotes an incredible amount of focusing through refraction, so you get waves bending on both sides while growing in the middle. One cool thing about the bathymetry here is that the contours extend out like an “A.” Sure enough, it’s an A-frame slab. Video: Joe Carter

Timmy Reyes: You’ll make your wave, get barreled, do whatever, but then the current is so strong that you can’t paddle back out over the reef, and you just get blasted by a ten-foot backwash and a ten-foot wave. You’re using a lot of energy just to stay in one spot to catch a surfable wave, so it's a lot of work. The waves come in from three different angles, so you just go on whichever one you think you can make, whichever one looks the cleanest, basically.

Mike Gleason: It doesn’t matter what we’re doing in our lives. If that wave breaks, Sam and I will be there. I’ve had a handful of sessions up there with that guy where we're just looking at each other like, “F***ing pinch me. Is this really happening? We’re all by ourselves, trading off tubes, freezing our asses off in the middle of nowhere and just laughing.” Those are the best memories you can ask for.

Sam Hammer: It’s tough getting there, and it’s not easy to access once you’re there. And if something bad happens, it’s not like you can just go to the hospital, so you really have to be in the right mindset. I was really bummed we didn’t get to surf it the day after, which I think was way better. But we couldn’t utilize our transportation to get there. It takes planes, trains, automobiles, boats, skis and feet to surf here. I’ll just leave it at that.

Timmy Reyes: None of us really rode that many waves, because it changed so fast. The tide was so extreme, the swell didn’t really stick around for too long, and then with the crazy backwash I rode two great waves and had a good wipeout. Super stoked! I’ve never ridden waves like that on the East Coast, so that was completely different. But there were amazing moments, moments that would’ve been amazing for anywhere.

Mike Gleason: I’m sure that after this comes out, some people are gonna be like, “Oh, I have to go find this place.” But I don’t think they ever would, and their eyes would be opened if they did ever find it. It’s dangerous as f**k, man. You’re dropping in on a 15-footer, there’s a foot of water underneath you, and then nothing but reef with the whole ocean behind it. You’ve really gotta want it.