ROBBY NAISH - CLOUDBREAK
ROBBY NAISH – CLOUDBREAK
Naish XXL Cloudbreak
When the king of windsurfing, Robby Naish, calls a session his best ever, you know it must be special. When the wind and waves align at Fiji’s famed big wave, Cloudbreak, Robby calls it one of the greatest windsurfing waves in the world. Read on as King Naish recounts a day when the magic happened.
Words Robby Naish // Photos Glen Duffos
(This feature originally appeared in the October 2015 issue of Windsurf Magazine. To read more features like this first, Print and Digital subscriptions are available. Prices include delivery globally for 10 x issues a year!)
HISTORY
The first time I went to Fiji was almost thirty years ago, when I flew with Pete Cabrinha and the rest of the Gaastra crew to shoot the windsurfing movie “Angle of Attack”. You can find the intro on www.windsurf.co.uk/angle-of-attack …a time warp into the days of windsurfing past with short shorts, bright fluoro colors and a new sport that was taking the world by storm. At that time the “island” of Namotu was just an atoll with a few bushes and one or two coconut trees on it. We stayed on Plantation Island and took a boat out to Namotu each day to sail the barrier reef break now known as Namotu Lefts. The wind is side–shore (though not always strong enough to windsurf), the waves are long and clean, and it is normally warm, sunny and beautiful. I have been there many times over the years since that first trip, for windsurfing competitions, waterman multi sport events, family holidays (even over the millennium in 2000) and photo shoots, kitesurfing and stand up paddling. But this last trip was my all time windsurfing score.
I have been working with a Dutch film crew called Eyeforce on a kitesurfing documentary film, and we wanted to include a trip to Fiji and more specifically Cloudbreak into the project. Initially the idea was to shoot with Naish team rider Kevin Langeree along with Pete Cabrinha and Keahi Deaboitz to kind of pair up some first generation kiters with some younger blood. The Cabrinha crew and the filmers would be on a big catamaran for a couple of weeks and Kevin and I would fly in if and when the conditions looked firing. Unfortunately, for the two week window that was planned, the wind and waves never really got sweet enough to justify flying all the way to Fiji. Then the forecast changed. A really solid swell with strong winds appeared just after our holding period. So they extended their trip and I packed up my equipment. This was a kitesurfing trip. But I could not go to Cloudbreak with the forecast that I was looking at and not bring some windsurfing gear!
BARE MINIMUM
I love windsurfing. But after decades on tour traveling with massive amounts of equipment, I really don’t like traveling with windsurfing gear. So I packed up the bare minimum: an 82 litre wave board, two 5.0’s, one mast, one boom, and one base and stuck it all in a single layer fitted board bag to make it as small and light as possible. It didn’t even look like a windsurfer it was so small. Stoked. Traveling these days is not what it used to be. I checked in with Air Fiji and as the roll of the dice would have it, they decided that for my three bags (one fairly large duffle bag with my kites, fins, harness, clothes etc., one small surfboard bag with two directional kite wave boards and my tiny little windsurf bag) I would have to pay $630.00. Darn it. I hoped the conditions would justify the expense.
FIJI AT LAST
They did. I arrived in Nadi along with Naish kite team rider Jesse Richmann (Kevin missed the window and had to compete in Tarifa) and his friend Patri McLaughlin from North. We jumped into our little shuttle vans, theirs taking them to Surf Fiji where they were staying on the mainland, and mine driving me to the dock where the Namotu boat would come and pick me up. Namotu and Tavarua are the two most famous surf resorts in Fiji. Tavarua is much bigger, hosting close to a hundred people on the island. About a mile away is Namotu, which at low tide is only about two hundred metres long and a hundred metres wide…and quite a bit smaller at high tide! It sleeps around thirty people if fully booked. Owned by Australian ex professional windsurfer Scotty O’Connor and his wife Mandy, Namotu has slowly evolved, grown, and transformed over the past thirty years from a rough and bare bones surf camp into a high end, comfortable, unique and very exclusive resort. It is a snorkeling, diving, fishing, surfing, kitesurfing and windsurfing paradise. Though the island was full, and because I was only going to be there for three days, and I knew the majority of the guests on the island (mostly kiters) and they had ok’d it, Scotty was able to squeeze me in!
WARM UP SESSION
My timing was perfect. Arriving mid morning allowed for an afternoon kite session at Cloudbreak. Fellow pro kiter Ben Wilson was also on the island, so we shared one of the open deck outboard boats and made the two–‐mile upwind trek to Cloudbreak from Namotu. If you think rigging windsurfing equipment on a boat is tough, you should try kiting. You have to lay out your lines on land, pump up your kite, connect your lines, deflate your kite, very very very carefully, wind up your lines onto your control bar, pack up your kite and carefully stick it in the boat. Once at the break, you have to back the boat into the wind, carefully pump up your kite, have someone knowledgeable hold it while you even more carefully jump in the water and swim out your lines…then have them launch your kite – hoping that your lines are not twisted etc. etc.! What could possibly go wrong?! The wind was just strong enough to get around and catch some waves on a kite, and the surf was three to four feet (Hawaiian, which means just over head to double over head on the sets) and it was a solid warm up for what was forecast for the next day.
CLOUDBREAK TURNS ON
You have all seen the articles from Jason Polakow and his sessions at giant Cloudbreak. Sick. I tried to get him to come along on this trip but his shoulder injury had not quite healed up yet so he had to pass. The wind at Cloudbreak is normally pretty light, and almost always quite offshore, making it pretty sketchy for windsurfing. You can get into the waves once out in the lineup, but getting back out can be difficult, and getting caught inside is a session ending event. The reef is VERY shallow and very sharp…and once you get caught inside you are not getting back out. The second day of my trip, the wind was already cranking at breakfast…quite unusual as it normally builds through the day. It was also more side–‐shore than normal rather than offshore. And the swell was pumping and forecast to pick up all day long. Things looked promising for a windsurf session. We arrived up at Cloudbreak around 9:30 am. In the boat with me were eight pro kiters and photographer Glenn Duffus. Eight kiters is already a crowd in the surf, especially at a point or reef break. Once you get your kite up when boat launching at Cloudy, that’s it. You have one session because landing your kite and getting your lines sorted, put away, and re–set to go again later is near impossible. If the boat is anchored you can leave your kite in the water with your bar attached to the boat…but out here the boat has to stay moving the whole time.
The wind was solid and the surf was already mast high. Until the waves get mast high or so, Cloudbreak is too crowded with surfers to kite or windsurf. But once the waves reach a height where paddling in becomes difficult, it becomes one of the best wind and kite waves anywhere. I was going windsurfing! I get seasick on a boat faster than lightning. Even having taken Dramamine, I needed to get off that thing after just a few minutes of putting around watching the conditions. I rigged up as quickly as I could (just thinking of looking down rigging my sail on a boat makes me want to puke) and got out there. I planed right off the boat with a 5.0, which is really unusual wind for Fiji. The summer in Hawaii has not been the best, and I have not flown to Oahu to windsurf Diamond Head even once. So the last time I rode my favored tack was Kona wind Lanes several months ago. I sailed out back and waited for a set.
DIALING IN!
The outside peak at Cloudbreak is big and fat as it pulls off the deep water, then builds up speed, power, and cleans up as the wave wraps in along the reef. By the time it reaches the inside section it is a roping hollow wave with almost straight offshore winds. From my very first wave I felt at home, surprised that my board, fin setup etc. felt so comfortable after so long standing the other way. It’s like riding a bike. You can take a break, feel a little apprehensive at first, but after a few minutes you are back to riding wheelies. Although I was not smacking the lip or doing aerials, I had a blast. I laid down some bottom turns that felt like they were pulling several G’s. If I got the second or third wave of a set, the wave was so smooth it felt like you could almost ride without fins at all and still be fine…just carving off your rail… no bumps, no chop at all, and a perfectly peeling and predictable wave with no closeouts or sections. It is almost too easy, yet at the same time extremely intimidating because you know that if you do go down or get caught behind the section and have to straighten out… your day is likely done. Most waves were in the five to eight foot range, but a couple of sets looked like small
Peahi turned into a left…something I normally only dream about.
DREAM SESSION!
I sailed for at least a couple of hours. In fact I sailed longer than I should have. I shared the waves with the kite crew, but was having so much fun that I didn’t want to stop. As with many waves around the world, the tide plays a big part in determining when it is good, bad, or even un-rideable. I windsurfed right through the best period of the day, even though I was there to shoot a kitesurfing film. The photos don’t really do it justice because with one photographer sitting on a boat, you can only capture one part of the wave…from the peak…and everything inside of that can only be shot from the judging tower on the reef. The crew was shooting video from there, but not stills. Eventually I had to call it a session, and headed to the boat, de–rigged, and set up my kite for round two. That afternoon and the two days that followed were kite only…but that couple of hours of windsurfing all alone (except for some good friends on kites) at one of the best waves in the world was one of my best ever windsurfing moments. At 52, and with 41 years of windsurfing under my belt, it’s pretty awesome to be able to say that. Aloha, Robby Naish.
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