Surfers revel in rough seas

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 5:“Epic”.

That was the way surfers described the 20-foot waves that pounded Bermuda this weekend.

Hurricane Ophelia barely registered a blip on land.

But the swells from the storm briefly transformed the South Shore into a Hawaii-style ‘big wave’ paradise.

More than a dozen surfers took advantage of the conditions as a safety jet-ski patrolled the ‘break’ close to the old Sonesta Beach hotel.

Cullen O’Hara, one of the island’s top surfers, said: “Everyone’s buzzing about it. You don’t get days like that very often in Bermuda so we were really stoked. We were just soaking it up.”

Choy Aming added: “I’ve never seen conditions like that in Bermuda before. Some of the faces of the waves were over 20-feet, there were barrels you could drive a car through.”

The fun was cut short for Paul Terceira after he caught a wave that snapped his board in two.

He said: “I’ve been surfing for 40 years and this is the first time I have ever broken a board. It wasn’t a huge wave but I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”