The Pilgrimage: Places to surf before you die

FROM Hawaii's famous Pipeline to the newly-born Superbank on the Gold Coast, Sean Doherty has created the ultimate wish list of waves to surf before you die.

ANY surfer worth his or her weight in board wax wouldn't think twice about trading in the house deposit or the plasma TV - or postponing parenthood - for a chance to ride the world's best waves.

Sean Doherty, the longest-serve editor of surfing bible, Tracks, certainly thinks it's a fair trade.

Gallery: Waves to surf before you die »

From Hawaii's famous Pipeline on Oahu's North Shore to the relatively new-born Superbank on the Gold Coast of Queensland, via more than two dozen countries, Doherty has pulled together the ultimate surfing wish list: The Pilgrimage: 50 Places to Surf Before You Die with the help of seven leading surf writers from Tracks magazine.

"All surfers carry around a mental list of waves that they really want to get to at least once in their life," says Doherty.

"But I don't think there's a man alive who has made it to all fifty waves that we've written about in this book."

Doherty admits that while he has surfed 20 of the waves he has written about in The Pilgrimage he "bullshitted another five".

SHORTLIST: NINE PLACES TO SURF BEFORE YOU DIE

Angourie: Surfing magic close to home » Bali: Uluwatu island life is swell » Gold Coast: All the way to the Superbank » Kirra: Surfing shortboard heaven » La Jolla: Twenty seconds of tube time » Mentawais: Lance's alright on surfing safari » Pipeline: Surfing monster waves in Hawaii » Shipstern Bluff: Surfing with the Tassie devil » Tahiti: Welcome to Teahupoo »

And true to the surfers' code of not sharing the location of  the best waves, Doherty says his favourite four or five waves aren't in The Pilgrimage.

"The fifty in there are common knowledge but there'd be a good chance of me getting lynched for including the others."

But out of the fifty waves in the book, Lance's Right in Indonesia's Mentawai island chain is one of his top three waves.

"In terms of sheer wave mechanics, it's pretty close to my perfect wave. It's pretty flawless; it's a rightbreak; it breaks at a fun size. It's not nearly as life-threatening as some of the other inclusions in the book and it's in the tropics."

Are there any waves here that Doherty wouldn't surf?

"Teahupoo (in Tahiti) over 6- to 8-foot. It's the most dangerous inclusion in the list."

The Pilgrimage: 50 places to surf before you die, edited by Sean Doherty, is published by Penguin Books on the Viking Imprint and is available in all good bookshops for $49.95.