Surfer Sally Fitzgibbons tackles 3.5m waves in Arabian desert

AUSTRALIA'S number one female surfer Sally Fitzgibbons has tackled a new challenge: 3.5m barrels at a wave machine in the desert near Dubai.

THE sand is hot, the air stifling. Winds far from the ocean have carved faces into cliffs.

It would be a spookily silent desert speckled with camel bones if not for the hum of machines churning masses of water though brightly shining pipes.

Over this hot, crusty palette rises the tip of a surfboard, hauled by lean legs and near bare skin, as bronzed as the Aussie we all wish we could be.

Pipes are buzzing, channeling a surging tide into a pool of unexpected blue. A crashing wave is heard, crazily out of place in a frenzy of sand, wind and frothing foam.

The desert is a beach. The beach is a machine. The machine is a toy, a hyperactive fun-factory hurling waves twice the size of the lean bronzed-girl about to skim her board through the guts of it all.

Sally Fitzgibbons, Aussie surf legend and pro tour surfer dives into Dubai’s desert pool to tackle waves unlike any other on the planet. She carves her place in the astonishing barrels of the Al Ain desert.

Red Bull have once again proved their passion for art and action with Oasis, this slow-motion film of Sally’s cuts, thrusts and 360’s. The film captures a landscape without walls and an endless set of near perfect air-rides.

Fitzgibbons and her board seem inseparable. She rips a half-pipe with the ease of a seasoned surfer, the grin behind her salty (perhaps chlorinated) strands of hair a testament to the thrill of the ride.

These waves in the middle of an arid, empty, cavernous land look to be worth traipsing the fiery desert sands for.