Out Of Bounds

Surrounded by pristine Australian wilderness, Asher Pacey and Bobby Martinez score the best beachbreak barrels of their lives without another soul in sight.

- Ashton Goggans

While visiting his family in Australia this spring, Bobby Martinez reconnected with his friend Asher Pacey for a tour of the rugged, wave riddled coastline where Pacey grew up. “Asher lives outside the rat race,” says Martinez. “His lifestyle out in the country is really mellow and away from it all, and it seems like he’s always getting waves. Some people’s idea of a good wave is a mushy right point, but Asher likes to get barreled. When he said it was going to be good, I took his word for it.” From the look of this deep, dark pit Martinez is standing in, Pacey’s a man of his word.

The two spent the first day of Martinez’s visit trading massive beachbreak barrels, hooting each other into perfect cylinders like this one Pacey coasted into. “The question was, ‘Which wave do you go on?’” Pacey recalls. “Do you go on one that looks really good? Or do you go on one that looks really, really good? It was a little bit confusing in that respect. [Laughs.] But a good conundrum to have, for sure.”