Not a bad view if you can get it. No matter how you can get it. Photo courtesy of John Harfield
We thanked him, and continued to spend an amazing but hungry day as he refused to feed us, sitting just meters away from one of the finest waves on the planet being surfed by some of the finest surfers on the planet. As the sun went down, and we headed back to the docks, the event manager had a stern word with us. “Well, I hope you’ve had a good day guys, but if you try and pull this stunt again tomorrow, I’ll throw you to the sharks. OK?”
That night we drank a couple of the local ales, Fiji Bitter, and discussed what to do. Never ones to turn down a challenge, that night we all agreed to do the exactly the same thing again the next day. Same routine, same seat that we hid under, same nervous walk to the bow, same event organizer. Only angrier. “I fackin told you boys not to come back, what the fack do you think you’re doing? Fackin Pommes!”
It probably wasn’t the best time for Jason to mention he was Canadian, but of course, he did.
“I don’t give a fack where you’re from, you shouldn’t be here,” he bellowed.
And I thought Australians were supposed to be chilled out.
As we had gambled, he didn’t actually make us walk the plank and had no choice but to let us enjoy yet another day bobbing around in the Fijian ocean, hooting as we watched the pros ride insanely perfect waves. The only difference was today we had brought some sandwiches. Once again, we headed back to the docks as the sun started to dip below the sea, and after the event organizer swore blind that he would have security on the ferry in the morning to check we weren’t there, we each managed to get an unwanted handshake from him and promised that we wouldn’t come back tomorrow. And we actually really meant it.
That evening, we bid farewell to Jason who was off to his next destination and thanked him for the memories that the three of us would always share. I left Chris talking about our two days of adventures to an Australian traveler called Will that we were sharing a room with at Mama’s house, and walked to the nearest pay-phone to make a well overdue call home. Once I’d assured everyone that I was safe, told them of our tale, and had the predictable “be careful” chat from my Mum, I headed back to the hostel. Halfway back, I was approached by a lean Fijian who had duct tape on his chin. As he said he was a surfer, I assumed this was covering a cut acquired from a wipeout on a reef. He asked if I knew about the contest that was being held on an island nearby. He said he had a boat that he could take us on for $50 each early the next morning. Not quite having had my fill of watching the pros surf idyllic waves, I spoke on Chris’ behalf and said we would meet him on the beach at 6 a.m.
Unsurprisingly, Chris was on my wavelength, and so was the Ozzy guy, Will, who he’d been chatting to in my absence. I was sure that there would be enough room for one more guy on the boat, and we decided to have an early night in preparation for the next day.
We woke at first light, and our new trio set off to meet our captain for the day. When we arrived at the beach, the boat turned out to be more of a dinghy with a hugely oversized engine. Chris and I exchanged glances, shrugged our shoulders and decided to risk it, boarding the tiny vessel. We set off towards the horizon with Chris and me sitting on the sides of the dinghy, and Will back to back with our host on the driving seat. We spent the next couple of hours speeding towards the contest, holding on for our dear, dear lives.
We finally arrived and pulled up at the reef with, surprise surprise, only boats carrying pros and sponsors present. We sat just meters away from the break thinking that we would finally have a relaxed day as we watched Kelly Slater score a perfect 10 on the heavy left hander.
Everything was going great as we ate our pre-made sandwiches and our driver toked on a joint. He explained that the cut on his chin wasn’t actually from a reef cut as I’d assumed. It was from a knife fight. At this point, I looked down and saw a large amount of water around my feet. I felt the need to draw his attention to this.
Seemingly unconcerned, he handed us old ice cream tubs which he just happened to have in the boat, making me feel as if this wasn’t the first time that this had happened. We scooped out the water as our captain did a big, noisy lap around all the contest boats. It’s fair to say that we were not making many friends.
All seemed well as we repositioned ourselves near the wave. Shortly, the boat started to fill up again. We went through this same routine four times whilst being yelled at by pros and sponsors for making so much noise and disturbing the contest.
