In New Zealand, the Storm Surfers team was once-again hunting never-before-surfed big waves with locals Doug ‘Mad-Dog’ Young and Shane Baxter.

Ross, Tom and Ben attended a traditional Maori greeting ceremony. It’s not often you see the guys looking this nervous!

When Doug and Shane had called the team over to NZ, the original idea had been to try and hit a break off Milford Sound – getting there involved a wild, hilarious rollercoaster-style helicopter ride with a local chopper pilot.

A second reconnoiter was undertaken at Barnes Bay, on the west coast. Ross, Tom, Doug and Shane scored some decent 10 footers, but the team decided the bay wouldn’t hold a big enough swell and it was also dangerous, with many hidden rocks.

When Ben Matson made the call that a big swell was on its way, we mobilized the team and went to NZ – taking a gamble and flying south to Port Craig. Arriving at the launch point, the wind was howling and the swell was nowhere to be seen. The team realized they’d been ‘fully skunked’ without even a two-foot wave as compensation. It was a total disaster as the season was coming to an end and we’d run out of money.

Somehow, we managed to raise just enough cash to do a mercy mission. Two weeks later we headed back to Port Craig and scored the full Storm Surfers frontal assault – hail, snow, and 40-knot winds smashed the team, but Doug, Tom and Ross scored some epic 30-foot monsters and became the first to surf Port Craig.

New Zealand also offered up some fun diversions, with a little sheep chasing, a world-record ‘heli-tow’ on a lak