Fiji Pro 2016

You should have been here yesterday ... it was pumping!

By Matanivusi Resort - June 16, 2016

Congratulations on another epic Fiji Pro! For a while it looked like the finalist might have had a chance to match Owen Wright's performance of 2015 with the perfect score of 2 x 10 point rides.The conditions looked similar with the big wash throughs appearing on the outside ledge but it just didnt quite produce the same result when they hit the inside reef. Still the surfing was fantastic and Medina was a clear winner.

Have you ever wondered where we would be without surf forecasters? If not for those people we wouldn't be seeing the world's best surfers do their job in the best possible conditions. They certainly got the call right with the decision to run the lay days after the pumping surf of the opening rounds of the event. It must be nerve racking watching the charts and monitoring the meterological data of weather events in the great southern ocean below Australia and telling the event commissioner to hold off - the swell is coming!

Not Cloudbreak... It's Frigates

At Matanivusi we use the forecast sites and they are great at telling when the swell is coming up and dropping off. The accuracy of the swell direction and wind direction forecasts are not always spot on for us, so the best thing we do for all our guests is to get in the boat and go out to the breaks and check it. Even when the forecast and the actual ocean conditions seem hopeless, we still encourage guests to go out and have a look. What I consider as hopeless surf, after 20 years living and surfing in this area,is usually better than most guests get at their homebreak. No, not becasue shitty surf in Fiji is any better than shitty surf anywhere else in the world, but because the water is warm and crystal clear, there is no crowd problem and you get a feel for the place ready for when it does turn on.

Now the event is over for another year, the world of surfing will focus its attention on the perfect peeling rights of Jeffries Bay. Fiji's "15 minutes of fame" is over but stay tuned for the next few days as I'm sure the forecast swell for Cloudbreak on Sunday will grab the world's attention again if the big wave chargers show up. Slater indicated in his post heat interview that he is sticking around. The forecast is for 3-4 meter swell with an occassional 6 meter. Lets wait and see if the actual conditions live up to the forecast!'i

Frigates

Of course everybody around the globe was watching “the Cloudbreak swell”. Little do a lot of people realize that Frigates holds just as big… if you want it! Of course we don’t get the big wave chargers here so we don’t go out. We surf around the corner, up the reef on the inside in fun head high + waves away from the limelight, just doing our thing… getting our guests into some of the best waves of their lives. May was a month of madness with unbelievable conditions. The best for the 20 years I have been living and surfing here. Swell after swell with solid waves in between. Very light offshore easterly breezes and sunny hot days. Still need the rashie to save your body. El Nino or whatever, it was a memorable month where we surfed at Frigates nearly every single day except when it was too big. Thousands of pics and thousands of memories of May 2016, the best ever!

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