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!
