With countless tonnes of Southern Ocean chasing him down, Melbourne student Alastair McLeod has become the first person to windsurf the fearsome Eddystone Rock wave off southern Tasmania.
McLeod cut his windsurfer across waves with faces up to 10 m. high earlier this winter, making them some of the largest ever windsurfed outside Hawaii.
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Alastair McLeod takes on megawave Pedra Branca
Watch as Alastair McLeod becomes the first windsurfer to ride the ultra-remote slab Pedra Branca, a wave that makes even the most seasoned big wave chargers shake in their wetsuit.
The 23 year-old Monash University student said he honestly doubted whether the ride would be possible.
"It's without a doubt the most dangerous thing I've ever done, but one of the most rewarding as well.
"It was an amazing experience to tackle one of nature's most powerful forces and escape unscathed. I'm still buzzing from the adrenalin high."
Eddystone Rock is a single granite pillar 30 metres high and about 30 km south of the Tasmanian mainland in the Southern Ocean.
It was named by explorer Captain James Cook in 1777 for its similarity to a famous British lighthouse but the wave is sometimes known as the Pedra Branca wave because of the location, a few kilometres from another cruise ship-sized rock.
The giant wave forms in specific conditions when wind direction, swell size, swell period and tide coincide, McLeod said.
"It has taken years for locals like (big wave surfer) Marty Paradisis and his friends to study and work out this wave.
"Without their intimate knowledge and assistance, this trip would not have been possible. Out of respect for them, I don't want to give any of those details away, even mentioning the date would give too much away."
Global big wave surfers Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones rode the wave in 2010, and others, including Paradisis, have since made spectacular rides.
McLeod managed to ride a handful of waves during the filming of an episode of the Red Bull documentary series Explorers – Adventures of the Century.