(This feature originally appeared in the August 2013 issue of Windsurf Magazine. Print and digital subscriptions for readers worldwide are available HERE.)
It’s rare to find a pro wave sailor who’s not a traveller. To go and hunt down big waves reeling down distant offshore reefs and place yourself in sketchy situations, you really have to want it, be prepared to lay everything on the line and also be ready to take the hits when the conditions don’t come together. In other words you have to be in it to win it .
Feature & Photos John Carter
When the right forecast lines up up there’s usually only a small window of opportunity and those with that desire to go the extra mile have to be ready to drop everything, leave loved ones behind and go chase the dream. So when an ‘out of the blue’ opportunity to go shoot Scott McKercher, Philip Koester and Jason Polakow taking on infamous Fijian spot Cloudbreak, this was my chance to be witness their pursuit of the ultimate ride on one of the best left-hand reefs on the planet.
Apparently Koester had booked his ticket thirty minutes after his call from Scotty and already had to start travelling five hours later in order to make it to Fiji in time for the first day of the swell – fair play! The young German has proved to the world that he is untouchable in cross-onshore ‘European’ conditions, but as for hard-core, down-the-line wave sailing, there’s still an, arguably harsh, question mark lingering over his ability. Meanwhile, heavy-wave Guru Jason Polakow had clocked the same forecast on his radar and was headed to Fiji independently to catch the same conditions. As for Scotty, he’s pretty much been there, seen it and done it in the search for perfection, but sailing sizeable Cloudbreak was one tick missing on his bucket list and was the instigator of this whole adventure that subsequently drew both Koester and myself into the equation.
Scott McKercher
Trepidation was the feeling, once the realization of what I’d got myself into had sunk in. It’s a nervous tension that I’ve never really felt before. I’ve scored double mast high waves in WA and Coco’s, but then when I compared, they were nothing to what Jason sailed in Fiji two years ago. It took a while to get to sleep, as a niggling uneasiness wouldn’t let me slumber. I finally did doze off, but it was still there when I woke, while packing and on the drive to Perth. It wouldn’t leave me alone. The drive up was good as I was able to reassure myself that I was capable of dealing with such situations, but then when I got to Perth and told my good mate Galvo what was happening, there was no hiding what was going on inside me. He could tell straight away.
I’d say it’s the first time I’ve ever felt this kind of prolonged anxiety before. Each step took me closer to the inevitable. I boarded the plane in Queensland behind Kiter Ben Wilson, who was also at Cloudbreak on the last giant swell with Pozza.
“Best forecast I’ve see for a year” he reassures me. My confidence was up and down as I tried to visualize waves of that size, knowing I could handle it, but then imagining eating it and what a hold-down on such a wave would be like. For it was on Namotu for the PWA comp we had back-in-the-day that I had one of the nastiest three-wave hold-downs I can remember, and it was all coming flooding back to poke the nerve that was flaring.
John Carter
I also spent much of the 12-hr. flight to Seoul Korea, 5-hr. layover and further 10-hr. flight to Nandi, pondering on what this adventure would deliver? For sure I wasn’t as nervous as Scotty or Philip who would both have to drop into the pit of this beautiful but beastly wave, but at the same time, there was still an edginess to my mood as the anticipation finally turned into reality and I touched down in Fiji. It’s a short bus ride from the airport to the ferry where the Malalo Cat was all booked up to take us out to the Islands. Scotty had booked us into the Plantation Island Resort that was to be our base camp for the next five days. Polakow had arrived a day before us and was already settled in on Namotu Island sharing digs with surfing legends Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson who’d also arrived early before the Volcom ASP event due to start on the 2nd of June.
The ASP surfing event was something we hadn’t factored into the equation before booking our tickets. Surely the best surfers on the planet were going to be equally hungry to catch this swell and no doubt they would not take too kindly to a bunch of windsurfers dropping in on one of the most coveted surfing waves in the world? Would they be cool with us? We’d have to cross that bridge at a later date.
One of my main concerns was finding boats to get out to the reef on, but within fifteen minutes of arriving on Plantation Scotty already had the matter sorted and we were all booked up to head to Cloudbreak within the hour. If you don’t mind splurging £100 for a 3-hr. trip out to the reefs, boats are no problem, although todays journey five miles or so offshore into twenty-five knots and choppy seas was no doubt going to be rough ride.
Scott McKercher
So with the warm Fijian welcome and our room shown to us, it was straight into it with a boat lined up to take us out to Cloudbreak. The first day was meant to be the building swell and it was more so we could get a feel for the set up before it started to pump. On the way out we pulled into Namotu to see if we could borrow a harness hook, because only half of Koester’s equipment arrived. He had a board, one rig (a 5.0), and a harness – but no hook. This was to be a key point in the development of this story …
John Carter
On the boat ride out to the Cloudbreak was the first time we saw them – uniform plumes of spray, each one chasing the next in orderly lines. The strong offshore trades were ripping the tops off the waves as they marched down the reef and, even from a couple of miles away, I could see huge open barrels grinding across the horizon. Prior to coming I had no idea Cloudbreak was an offshore reef, but as our boat passed Tavarua – the exclusive heart-shaped island that formerly had the stranglehold on the rights to surf it – we still had over a mile of open water before we hit the break. The regulations at Cloudbreak all changed in July 2011, when the authorities decreed no island could hold exclusive rights to any wave in the Island chain. The doors were open!
The sublime submerged topography of this perfect reef can hold any sized swell from 2-20 feet and consists of three notorious sections – The Point, Middles and the inside ‘Shish Kebabs’ section. Swells that squeeze up the corridor between Australia and New Zealand jet north until they hit this perfectly shaped reef pass. Over 6 feet and the swells rear up on the outside ledge before rifling all the way down the reef, although some waves sneak through and hit the middle or inside section where the coral is shallower and holds way more consequence for those unfortunate enough to get dry-docked upon it.
With the wind blowing hard and a mixture of swells, including the first forerunners of a new long period, southwest swell, it was hard to pin point the best section for our first session. Being green to the place I had no idea if these conditions were ‘perfect Cloudbreak’ or not, where to be in the boat and what lens to shoot it with. Working in a small boat out to sea in rough conditions certainly wasn’t going to be easy, especially when we spotted a few other vessels loaded with surfboards moored up nearby. Apparently the upcoming ASP event had one heat of the trials to run so we had to hold off windsurfing until that was over and then the guys seemed cool that we could catch some waves.
Pozza was still on Namotu waiting for the call from the organizers and would head over as soon as the green light was given. Everything was a blur to me. Five hours ago I’d just stepped off the plane and now here I was bobbing around in the South Pacific, dangerously close to one of the meanest waves in the world. It seemed like an eternity until the heat was finally over. With the surfers out of the way the reef was all ours and it was the perfect opportunity for Scotty and Philip to get a feel for the set up before the peak of the swell hit the next day.
Scott McKercher
Cloudbreak is a long way out to sea. If anything was to go wrong, which I’ve seen out there surfing, it’s a long way to medical attention. The thing is, once I was on the ocean, my nerves became calm with what was happening right now, or for whatever waves were on their way. I was now in the moment. Finally. Our first session was a good aperitif for the main course, which was on its way across the Pacific. Medium-sized waves at logo-to-mast-high. But any day at Cloudbreak can make you pay for being a little reckless. The bottom is razor sharp, with the inside section called Shish Kebabs for a good reason. If you get caught behind the section, a trip over the reef is pretty much inevitable.
It was pretty windy 4.7m conditions and a little bit wobbly with some breaking on the outside and some on the inside, which probably explained why every surfer and his dog wasn’t on it and we could get a few. Even so, there was a splattering of the world’s best surfers in the line-up, (It’s not often you’re bottom turning and seeing Taj Burrow’s head in the lip) but the crowd wasn’t too bad considering the ASP was in town.
John Carter
Working from the boat proved to be far trickier than I’d imagined. I’m sure on a nice glassy day with evenly spaced sets draining down the reef it’s no problem shooting here, but throw in 25 knots of wind and two different swells and it was almost impossible to be in the right place at the right time. I’m not sure whether any sailor has ever done a jump before at Cloudbreak, but Philip Koester soon put the record straight throwing a big forward and a couple of decent sized back loops while the wind was strong at the beginning of the session. Surely that has to be a first?
By 5 p.m. all the boys had clocked up a few solid waves and, with sunset looming, we had to navigate the reef passes before it was too dark to make it back to Plantation.
D DAY
Scott McKercher
So this was the day all the nerves were about. Jason’s forecast for his previous big day [in 2011] was 3.6m on an 18-second period swell. This one was 4.2m on a 15-second period. But the consensus was that it wasn’t going to be as big, with the howling winds holding the swell back. And it wasn’t. On the way out past Namotu we saw a nice one wrapping around the island, but it wasn’t huge, so already I knew it wasn’t going to be in the ridiculous scale.
As we pulled up, Jason was already out there on a boat with Joel Parkinson and Mick Fanning – who’d had their early morning session and were on their way back – so he jumped ship into ours. He’d been looking at it for a while, but there were dubious glassy patches holding him back. With a shifty peak from the inside to out, it was way too easy to get cleaned up like a sitting duck with nowhere to go.
Slowly the wind built to where it seemed possible out the back, but still glassy on the inside. Jason rigged first, and wallowed out the back for a bit before I joined him and went straight down to my waist with very little wind. Oh dear. Ever so slowly it built, where were able to pluck one or two, but it took a while. The bigger bombs out the back where a bit messed up and bumpy, but the mid-sized ones that hit the inside had more wall and were sucky and ridiculously, glassy smooth.
Philip only had his 5.0 and had to watch agonizingly until there was a bit more wind. Eventually it did pick up and he was able to venture out for his first wave. He’d been wise to be patient and now he was finally getting a taste of what he’d flown so far for.
SKITTLED For his first ride I could see he was sitting pretty deep of a fairly big bowl and was urging him to get moving as I was sailing back out in the channel – or at least what I thought was the channel! It was lighter wind and more side-shore than the day before, so the ability to gun out of sketchy situations wasn’t there.
He bottomed turned and I was like ‘oh no, he’s gonna eat shit!’ The whitewater engulfed him, he came out, and then it swallowed him up again. For sure he was gone, but, like Houdini, he managed to escape its clutches once again. As I went over the shoulder I heard him hooting at not being mowed down – and then my heart sank. The exact situation that had haunted me before coming here was all of a sudden right in front of me. A wave bigger than anything that’d come through all day was bearing down on me. I didn’t see Jason, but apparently he was on it, saw me and thought, ‘he’s stuffed … ’
Surprisingly calm, I waited until it was almost on me and then ‘tin soldiered’ as deep as I could to avoid the turbulence of so much moving water. It threw me around a bit, took me down pretty deep, but with a few strokes to get back to the surface, it actually wasn’t that bad. Thankfully there wasn’t another one as big behind it and was able to dive through the next to safety. The wave wasn’t done yet though. As Philip hooted and continued through the glassy inside section, he again wisely projected as far out into the channel as possible to avoid the wave behind. But fatefully it wasn’t enough.
He was also left like a sitting duck for the following wave to grab his gear and smash it onto the awaiting reef. His only sail gone, he was left to sit on the boat and watch painfully again. With only one or two surfers in the line-up, Jason and I had it pretty much to ourselves. We slowly figured out that it was the inside ones that were the joy, with some long, lined-up glassy walls. But things were about to turn pear-shaped once again. I was out on the peak and about to gybe onto a wave, but pulled out at the last minute as it became a little critical. In hindsight I should’ve gone. For behind it was a bigger one, where I just managed to get over the lip but the updraft was brutal, exploding me over the lip with arms and legs flailing.
And there in front of me was the second 10-12 footer of the day.Self-preservation kicked in and there was no thought for my gear whatsoever. I just dove as deep into the wave as I could to avoid being sucked over-the-falls, which was what happened to my rig. So after another trip back inside to pick up the remnants of my gear, Philip and I decided to head back but, as we were about to takeoff, we saw Jason inside with very little wind and a looming set out the back.
Inevitably it was the same result for Jason, with his gear getting detonated and dragged over the reef and that was pretty much it for the day.
CLOUDY BREAKAGE
John Carter
Everything seemed surreal. Being out on a boat with Polakow, Scottie and Philip Koester at Cloudbreak with the likes of Mick Fanning, John John Florence and Joel Parkinson sharing the line-up should’ve been a dream day, but somehow the Gods seemed to be against us. Koester smashed his only rig on the first wave and then Scotty destroyed his 5.0 and his 5.3 in a matter of 45 minutes. There were some bomb sets coming through, but either breaking way outside the position of our boat, or snaking through to the inside. I just felt out of sync and pretty frustrated with the way things were panning-out. Even so, out on the water staring into the barrel of a 10-foot set at Cloudbreak is something I will never forget. There’s so much raw energy and the way that wave jacks up and throws over was simply awesome. Polakow was like a man on steroids once he has caught a few solid sets through to the inside. These big days are what he lives for and suddenly he was all over it, fired-up and totally fearless.
The day after the big swell, the wind had all gone but we decided to head back out to Cloudbreak to check out the ASP surfers warming up before the event. As we passed Namotu, I joked to Scotty and Koester that I’d arranged to meet World Champion Joel Parkinson and Mick Fanning at 3 p.m. for an exclusive shoot. Lo-and-behold we arrived at Cloudbreak at 2.50 p.m. and 10 minutes later a boat rocked up with the aforementioned champions on board. How ridiculous was that! The boys were almost too shocked to offer any retort as I sat smugly in the boat. We were then treated to an hour of watching deep barrels from the channel with John John Florence and a couple of other pros joining in the session midway through. Now that was pretty sick!
Scott McKercher
So the question begs to be asked. Was it worth it? It was a question I asked myself on the way there. Why am I causing myself all this angst? The answer? Absolutely! We tasted what giant Cloudbreak can be about and on the boat trip back to the mainland, Philip was already talking about coming back for when the next real big one hits. He wants to feel the rush, combined with fear of a dropping down a massive one. It looks like Philip’s got a dose of the adrenaline junkie in him like Pozza, who also mentioned the season wasn’t over and we’d have to get back for when it really turns on.
These sort of moments let you know you’re ALIVE. It’s an intensity that stays with you for a long time or even a lifetime, reminding you that you’re not here forever and you have make the most of every opportunity. For these were no ordinary moments.
Jason Polakow
The best part of the wave is the end section where the wide west sets break and peel all the way down to ‘Shish Kebabs’, where its super shallow and hollow and photographers can just sit in the channel and score amazing images.
This particular swell was very south making most of the rideable waves at the top end of the reef a nightmare for the film and photographer guys to shoot.
Massive 10-ft sets broke on the outer part of the reef every hour or so, so it was a gamble to either sit on the far outside and get the bomb sets that started nice and far out, but, because of the extreme south direction had no shoulder as they hit the bottom end of the reef, or you could risk it and sit on the inside section and wait for the smaller west sets. You couldn’t see nor catch the smaller west sets from the outside so you had to either risk it and sit inside or wait on the outside.
It was a very tricky day and prior knowledge of the wave was key. Scotty and myself were lucky enough to catch a few smaller west sets that peeled all the way down-the-line and Phillip had a few nice bombs on the outside, but wiped-out early and had no spare gear. For me it was definitely the trickiest conditions I’ve had at Cloudbreak, especially with the low cloud, slight rain showers and shifting wind conditions. It only takes me one ‘SICK’ wave to make the trip worthwhile and I had at least 5 of those so I was
super-happy.
