Pacific Beta

Guam

From: surfgeo@aol.com (SURFGEO) Newsgroups: alt.surfing Subject: Re: Guam Date: 7 Feb 1996 17:36:21 -0500

i spent a month in Guam during June (before spending a month in Indonesia), very little surf as Typhoon season had not started yet, but i snorkelled and scuba dove the area reefs and i could tell that when a swell hits, it will go off, but i dont have enough meat on my body to feel like sharing it with the coral there. The pics i saw at the local surf shops proved that they get some real epic surf at times, but man, it makes the reefs in Indo look like the sandbars breaks here in Texas.

Samoa - Samoans are huge and the water’s warm, about 28C. Surfing is new there so the breaks aren’t very crowded.
Samoana Resort of the south side of Upolu, the main island, is Aussie run. Its in the village of Salamumu. Nearby breaks include Coconuts, Boulders and Devil’s Island.
Fungalowa Bay on the North Coast is a good setup as is Tiaves. The benefit of staying in a camp like that is good food, comfy accommodation and transport with experienced guides.
Custom dictates that shoes and sandals be left at the threshold of the fale, or hut. Also don’t walk around shirtless -- it’s disrespectful and you don't want to make the Samoans angry.

From: "barneyinoz2001"
Date: Mon May 27, 2002 9:24 pm
Subject: samoa report
malo, last day in samoa. logging in from a web cafe in apia. samoa's the real deal -- true polynesia; solid waves.

my first day in the water was at sinali rights here on upolu. it was six feet up the back, light offshore and barrelling over a shallow reef. the boatmen were saying it was the best day in a month.

after a month of going left in fiji, i was very cautious on the rights. only got bounced off the reef once, but at that size the wave commands respect.

sinali is the top surf resort in samoa, and the rates reflect it -- about $125 US per day. i shifted to the cheaper maninoa on the south coast (about $30 US per day) and stayed for 10 days.

highlights there were surfing boulders left at 4 foot in a light rain and a couple of days at nuusafee island.

for the second half of my stay i shifted over to the big island, savaii. savaii is more rural and more traditional in terms of culture than upolu.

in this season the south shores are the go. may thru october sees big antarctic swells smacking these islands. according to the locals, this is the season for the juice. the other months have smaller fun waves on the south shores and the occasional epic swell on the north coasts.

i stayed in the beach fales at satuiatua on savaii. hard to beat: a hut on the beach in the shade of a mammoth fig tree, good food, three top breaks within walking distance and never more than four other surfers in the water.

it was small in the 12 days i was there -- never over head-high. too small for the point to break. although, judging from the collection of snapped boards in the dining fale, it gets big once in awhile. mick fanning left an autographed dhd in the rafters as a souvenir of his visit to savaii.

tonga tomorrow. looking forward to the change.

re: boardbags; i've got a ripcurl triple bag and it does everything except make toast. Interior straps, pockets, rollers, a lift-out daybag, and built-in roofrack make packing the sticks easy. Good luck in CR, Ed. Go big.

re: queen mum; she shouldv'e stayed off the crack -- "Her death should act as a warning to others who think it is cool to experiment with drugs". E. Franks, Cheshire. -- (!!?)

happy summer,

barney out

Tonga

From: "barneyinoz2001" Date: Mon Jun 24, 2002 10:19 pm Subject: Re: surfing for life ... tonga, hawaii

Aloha Kooks,

back in the usa. i'm in hawaii now. arrived last night.

it's strange to be back in the states. last night i almost laughed when someone handed me change and some pennies. what other country would use something as stupid as pennies? a country that puts commerce above everything else, i guess.

waikiki is a riot: planet-farkin-hollywood and every flavor of tourist. i rented a $50 hotel room this morning with a hot shower, cable tv and a view of the traffic. all the mod cons. this morning i found the statue of the duke on the esplanade and small waves breaking off the beach.

tonga, sometimes referred to as the 'armpit of the pacific', was unspectacular wave-wise. spent three weeks on the main island, tongatapu at ha'atafu surf resort. ha'atafu is a great place to stay, but it requires a substantial swell for the reefs to start breaking. it never gets much overhead in the southern hemisphere summer. however, when it does it can be perfect.

we had a few head-high days at ha'atafu and one overhead day of perfect lefts. multi barrels in that session including one telescoping tube that left me giggling with serotonin when i got spat out into the channel.

one week of the tongan tour was spent on eua'iki, northeast of the main island. it cops a bigger swell than ha'atafu, but is often stuffed by the wind. no reef pass either. you had to walk over the coral with booties on then time the sets to get off the ledge. it worse coming in.

it was cool being the only surfer on the island though. whenever i paddled out to ride the reef, half the kids in the village (40 people total) turned out to watch.

after i get done with the errands here in town, i'll rent a car to see the rest of oahu. maybe fly to kauai next week.

i'll be in nyc late july -- see you kooks later.

PS:
onya jen for moving to the beach and livin right.

And don't worry about losing the job, Jon, they're overrated. Surf your brains out until you have to join the ranks of the employed once again.

Fiji

From: "barneyinoz2001"
Date: Sat Apr 27, 2002 9:17 pm
Subject: fiji report, lomotil and surfing population

bula kooks,

my 20 days in fiji are up today. lovely islands, wonderful people and
some world-class waves.

my first surf was at wilkes pass, near namoutu. tavarua is also close by, but i chose to stay on the main island at the rendevous resort,
which was far cheaper than those two american-owned joints.

it was a saturday -- changeover day on the resorts -- and we intended
to surf cloudbreak. (fiji's reefs are traditionally owned by nearby
villages and tavarua has negotiated agreements with local groups for
exclusive surf rights to cloudbreak and restaurants. so the only day
off-islanders can surf cloudbreak is saturday). however, there was a
screw-up with our skipper and we arrived at tavarua too late for the
boat to cloudbreak. wilkes was the next best option.

wilkes pass is a righthander well out in the ocean. it was hard to
get my bearings with the nearest land about two kilometers away.
fortunately it wasn't too big - about head high. there was a bit of
chop when we anchored off the reef, but the wind died later in the
morning and it went all glassy.

fiji's waters are the clearest i've seen anywhere and bathwater warm.
it was fairly surreal gliding over the colorful reef and watching all
the fish dart underneath the board. best of all, there were only five
of us out. it was a good three-hour session.

the next day was more crowded: a new batch of longboarders had
arrived from namoutu. it was also bigger, at a few feet overhead. an
aussie sponger and i rode the outside peak, away from the mals. it
was tricky in that if you picked the wrong wave, you got worked and
pushed onto the reef. i got caught inside once and had to make the
long circuit across the current and over the coral. one of the mal
riders was caught inside with me. he was waving to his boat to come
pick him up. i had to remind him that he was standing in waist-deep
water and would have to make the channel before he'd get a lift.

after a couple of hours and some good rides, i started to look for a
wave in. i found one and wove toward the channel. i stuffed the exit
and fell on my board, snapping one of the fcs fins off with my lower
back. in the boat i assessed the damage: one fin broken off cleanly
at the pegs and a small cut on my back. it could have been a lot
worse.

the next stop was sigatoka on the southwest coast of viti levu.
sigatoka is one of the island's only beachbreaks. it breaks where a
brown river dumps into the sea. the color of the water reminded me of
rockaway on a bad day.

the southeast winds started when we arrived at club masa, a rustic
hostel behind the dunes from the beach. the surf was a hash. i spent
a few days there reading london fields and smoking dope with an odd
assortment of poms and israeli surfers before i finally gave up and
called a cab.

days later i came to the waidroka resort, a few kilometers west of
pacific harbor. it's an american-owned place that caters to divers
and surfers. they run boats out to vunanui, mata point, waidroka
pipe, serua rights and frigates passage, a formidable left. i ended
up staying there nine days because we were getting waves every day
and the food was good.

the highlight was thursday at frigates. the aussies were calling it 4-
6 foot and the wind was mostly offshore. ours was the only boat out.

i was first in the water and bagged three waves before the rest of
the guys got out. the first wave was small and fast. on the second i
was too deep and tried to punch through the ceiling only to get
thrown to the reef and rolled around in the whitewater until i
started to panic. the third wave was a screamer: double overhead and
moving so fast that after the bottom turn i just pulled into trim and
hung on until it started to arc over me. a more experienced surfer
would have stalled to get deeper; i was happy just to make it to the
shoulder in one piece.

i'll have to come back to fiji one day and see the rest of it.
there's a lot of other breaks out there, hardly touched. the Lau
Group for example, three days sail to the east, is rumored to have
great waves. The Yasawas also have a few breaks and a new surf resort
has opened on Kandavu. There's a lot of potential here.

Answers to today's trivia questions: Lomotil, Keith, is the chemical
cork, an invaluable aid for third-world bus trips. And Surfer mag
estimated the number of surfers in America at 7 million five years
ago, Alex, but nobody has any reliable numbers on this.

Hope you kooks are getting some. I'll try to post from Samoa.

- barney

Below is a minor account of some of mine & Miranda's amazing experiences in the South Pacific blue yonder for our honeymoon. Although it's more on surfing though; ain't it typical? As for Tahiti, it was absolutely fucking amazing! Perfect tropical honeymoon bliss!!

We stayed on three different islands; BORA BORA for 7 days, MOOREA for 7 days and TAHITI for 3 days. BORA BORA is just thee most perfect tropical spot on earth. We swam with & fed blacked tip sharks, fed & piggybacked a school of stingrays who seemed impossibly to be having more fun than us and then we went snorkeling amongst lurid flouro fish that you'll never see in an aquarium anywhere. MOOREA we chilled out more while Miranda focused on her tanning skills. We did go swim with the dolphins, I even got to do a mouth-fart on one of their belly-buttons! They're cheeky little buggers with lots of spunk & vigor.

I only went surfing on 3 occasions, all in MOOREA, it was the best surf I've ever been in my entire life! It was anywhere between 10-15' faces of perfection every time!!!!! HUGE! It was sooooo big infact that I really will admit I was somewhat fearful when I was out there, and I generally charge it like a maniac, even in that size surf, but I knew I'd better hold back a bit. The waves had twice as much force/power I've ever been used to and besides, I was only on my 6'3!.....the paddle out wasn't fun, a long 1 1/3 miles and it took 30mins at least. Although I only got out there three times, each one was an insane session.

I surfed twice at HAAPITI on the southern shore atol. An absolutely magnificent wave not too unlike TEAUHPAU, except the ocean doesn't drop out of this wave quite as much, it just jacks and buckles over the reef like a living freakin' monster about to gobble you whole. The left goes for about 150yds at least with a racey truck-sized tube section where I saw a local (going backhand) 20' back inside a giant 15' barrel, an image I had that would've made any surf mag cover, then gets spat out looking like he just clocked 50mph, he then rides the walled up inside smacking the lip on a 7'0 five times in a row - awesome!

The 2nd session was the hairiest. The swell was on the increase and every now & then a massive wall of ocean 18'+ high would come charging through - I can't remember paddling that hard for my life! By the time I wanted to paddle in, all the locals had left in a boat and there I was all alone in rising seas - very, very eerie!! I caught the next midsized left (8-10' face) did 6 whacks off the top to the inside section & belly-boarded it to the inside reef to get the momentum up for the long haul back. By the time I got to the boat ramp it was pitch black & 6pm.

The other session I had was at TEAME, the airport rights, near the Sofitel Hotel that we stayed at on the NE of the island, and it was equally as big. This wave is considered to be one of the best in all of Polynesia. So much so, apparently Kelly Slater flew in to Moorea to score the remnants, a day after the epic first day of the swell I had with the locals at TEAME. It was hairy & scary to say the least with big yawning monster barrels over biting reefs. The wave goes for 200yds+, like a point/reef break with giant wedging backdoor barrel sections looming ahead of you. If you were game you had to really pump for it and by the time you got into your tube stance, the thing has pitched so far out & ahead of you, you're automatically 15' back inside it looking out to a wall 30 yds ahead! Ay Curumba! What a vision!

Guys were getting 8-10sec barrels all over the place. I got at least 2 x 6-8sec barrels but got crushed & creamed for being too far back inside. I was drilled to a pulp the second time and dragged underwater for 40yds. I had a good session for 1 1/2hrs and then the wind turned on it a blew it to smithereens. What blew me away were the Tahitians. They charge it like nothing I've seen. 27 out of 30 could have been or are turning pro. Consistently excellent surfers and a bunch of happy bastards too. One surf at HAAPITI there were 3 girls out there charging it too & taking off further inside most of the blokes, even myself for that matter. We had such an amazing trip! And we're not too happy to be back. Alex K