Devon family's quest to find Savage Islands wave
BBC By Jonathan Morris
BBC News
What if you could find a hidden treasure on an island in the North Atlantic, not gold or jewels, but something as precious and rare to surfers - a beautiful wave that no-one had surfed before?
That was the dream that inspired Matt Knight, 59, a renowned skipper, adventurer and surfer, to follow the clues from a 19th Century treasure hunter's journal.
"That was what started the whole thing off really," he said.
"A great old seafaring friend of mine had been bequeathed a bookshelf full of amazing old seafaring yarns from his grandfather.
"And he pulled this particular book off the shelf one day when I was down there visiting, and said 'read this'."
Savage Waters by Victorian adventurer and sailor EF Knight - no relation - was "essentially a treasure hunt story", explained Matt.
The author had been tipped off that Spanish gold was buried on rocks called the Savage Islands so he and a band of adventurers set off to find it on what is now a nature reserve north of the Canary Islands.
