Kelly Slater Revealed a Trick to Identify Secret Surfing Spots: “You Can Start to Find Strange Places in This World”

Surfing GOAT Kelly Slater has surfed at the world’s most renowned places. From Fiji to France, the 51-year-old has dominated the championships in these places, gaining an ocean of knowledge about great surfing spots. Recently, when Slater appeared in an interesting Q&A video, he revealed an effective trick to identify secret surfing spots.

A month ago, the surfing legend was featured in a Q&A video with WIRED on YouTube. While answering a bunch of burning questions on surfing, one of his fans asked him, “Searching for the best waves. Do you have a secret surf spot?”

Kelly Slater uses satellite imagery to discover surfing spots

Although, the fan intended Slater to reveal some of his secret surfing spots, but the 11-world champion gave a quirky answer. Kelly told that he has many secret surfing spots, but he refrains talking about them as they are his “secrets.” However, the surfer shared an interesting way to discover unexplored spots in the world.

The surfing champion revealed that he finds it quite fun to look at satellite imagery of the oceans to discover surfing spots. Using this trick, surfers can comprehend the time and intensity of the waves at different times of the year. He further explained, “Because most waves are seasonal, there’s gonna be different swell indicators. If you go back through year after year after year on satellite imagery, you can start to find strange places in this world where waves break.”

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Saying this, Slater gave out one underrated surfing spot in Namibia, stating that there are tons of secret waves found in the South African region. The application of digital maps and satellite imagery is indeed a great way to discover secret surfing spots. According to an article by Surfer Today, there are 370,000 miles of coastline on Earth harboring many unexplored surfing areas of which surfers are unaware.

Kelly Slater had once talked about a dangerous surfing location

While talking about being intimidated by Pipeline surfing as a child, Slater revealed the dangers of surfing at the Banzai Pipeline in his docuseries Make or Break. Kelly could not understand how surfers could turn around and catch the waves there. Furthermore, he talked about the mishaps that have happened at the dangerous surfing spot.

The Banzai Pipeline is a surf reef break in Hawaii, Oahu’s North Shore. The waves here are so gigantic that they break in shallow water just above a sharp and cavernous reef, forming large, hollow, thick curls of water. Slater revealed that it is very scary to paddle and ride the heart-wrenching waves here, and how one of his friends died at that location 12 years ago.

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Moreover, some of his friends have been scalped by the strong waves too. Nevertheless, there have been frequent news of accidents in this place, as revealed by Slater. Recognizing and handling waves at secret surf spots comes with experience and Kelly Slater has evidently aced it.