Pedra Branca is a rock covered by bird droppings that looks like a ruined Mayan pyramid about 26 kilometres off the south coast of Tasmania.

A colony of skinks has been trapped there since the land link to Tasmania subsided 15,000 years ago. Abel Tasman first spotted the 2.5-hectare rock in 1642. A Japanese fishing trawler ran into it in 1973 and sank with the loss of 21 lives.

Big money wave: Tyler Hollmer Cross on his award-winning ride.

It also breeds waves they call TOADS - Take Off And Die.

One afternoon late October last year surfer Tyler Hollmer Cross let go of a tow rope as a jet ski powered away leaving him skipping across water on the back of a giant bucking swell marching out of the depths towards Pedra Branca.