Preparing for Fiji by watching Thundercloud

It’s nearly that time of year when the Surfd team head somewhere epic for some work, play and everything in between.

The destination is Fiji – Tavarua Island, to be precise. Not far offshore wraps one of the world’s ultimate bucket list waves: Cloudbreak.

Kelly Slater lists it as his favourite wave in the world. When you see how Kelly surfs Cloudbreak you’ll understand why. Professional surfers describe it as the most perfect wave in the world and they advise “going for the ones that look like closeouts!”

Lean into your fear

To follow this advice requires overriding all of the surfer’s instinctive fear response. It’s about faith, taking the drop and holding tight. That’s the other thing about Cloudbreak, you don’t really need to pump or try for momentum. The wave picks you up, you set a line and let it happen. If you spend all year grovelling at beachbreaks you’re in for a surprise. If you’re not used to riding at speed then you’re in for an awakening.

The big questions

Which board to ride? Where to take off? To wear reef boots or not? Take a GoPro or TomTom Bandit, or record only with your mind? To spend more time surfing or photographing bikini models? Can we have it all?

The answers will be revealed.

Here’s hoping the swell doesn’t get this big.

You can watch the movie in full on iTunes: http://geni.us/2EcB