Surfer earns $20k from epic barrel ride

Ask any surfer the value of a good barrel ride and the answer is unequivocal - priceless.

But not for Hawaiian pro surfer Koa Johnson who pocketed a cool $20,000 for an epic tube in Namibia.

Johnson won first prize in the World GoPro challenge after filming himself riding an unbelievably long drainer at fabled Skeleton Bay, off the northern coast of the African nation.

The wave breaks over a perfect sandbank point in the Atlantic Ocean and has been the subject of some of the longest ever tube footage shot.

But Johnson's 27 second ride behind the curtain is without doubt the best ever shot and will prove hard to beat as the longest barrel of all time.

During the ride, the goofy footer drops easily down the face before slotting himself under the lip and simply holding his position as the wave envelopes him for several hundred metres.

Any surfer would find the joy of such a ride reward enough, but for Johnson it also delivered him one of the biggest pay checks ever for a single wave.

What a bonus.