Never alone in Fiji
The early morning mist trapped by the mountains, mingles with the smoke from the village fires. It slowly meanders as it caresses the ground. I make out the shapes of villagers waving to me and mouthing the words, “Bula!” as we drive by. I’ve been in Fiji less than ten minutes and I already know that I will meet some of the nicest people of my life.
My driver listens to a mixed tape as I watch the world go slowly by. I roll down the window of the taxi to feel the tropical humid air hit my face. I am here, just me and my surfboards for two weeks.
An hour later we pull into the surf resort and I know instinctively that the waves are pumping. I can’t see the waves, but I can faintly hear them out on the outer reef. Looking out towards the sound, I can see the mist from the pounding surf hanging just above the horizon. I learn I just missed the boat to Pipes, but the owner of the resort tells me I can leave my bags in my bure and meet him at a second boat and he would take me out.
We are on the water in ten minutes and at the reef in twenty. I look on in awe as a solid wall of water hits a reef shelf and morphs into a sick and twisted piping left barrel. The small group of surfers in the lineup look, but there are no takers. I can’t believe I’ve only been in Fiji less than two hours and I’m about to paddle out to one of the sickest waves I’ve seen in years.
I leash up and jump into the warm water and paddle into the un-crowded lineup. I can feel the energy of the other surfers. A low hum of stoke. I watch as a guy with a walrus style mustache paddles into a pitching left. I want to watch his progress but a solid eight foot set comes in. I paddle hard, then whip around and realize I’m the only one in position, so I take the opportunity and drop in. This is the point where everything seems to slow down and each microsecond stretches the fabric of time. My board and I drop and acting on instinct, I pull in a quick bottom turn and set up for the throwing barrel. It is setting up perfectly. My leg muscles tense and I pull up and in and stall just a little. I can feel my left hand dragging in the face of the wave as it starts to throw over my head. Down the line, I see the walrus guy sinking through the wave in slow motion. I can see the big grin on his face as he looks at me getting royally shacked. Then… it all goes to hell. I stalled too much and I fall deeper into the barrel and the foam ball starts to suck me in. The curtain closes and I prepare for the second act. I have no choice but to take a giant breath and bail. I dive forward into the tube trying to penetrate and instantly feel my body getting sucked over the falls. The impact is immense, as I get slammed with tons of water pressure driving me deep. Luckily, I don’t hit the reef but I get the royal washing machine treatment for a good twenty seconds. It takes everything I have to remain calm and search for an opening to the surface. Finally, I break through the turbulence and take a lung full of sweet tropical air. I quickly realize that I’m out of the danger zone and now only in about four feet of water. I paddle into the channel and slowly make my way out to the anchored boats.
Before I can say anything, an Australian surfer shakes his head back and forth looking at me and says, “Hey mate, I’ve never seen anyone get shoved that far inside the reef.” I bow my head and look at one of the logos on my board with feigned interest. I sheepishly reply back. “How do you work this wave?” He laughs.
Me and the other guys surf this spot for a few hours and on the way back in, I hear the Aussies laughing and telling each other about my first wave. I guess getting that wave, earned me some respect in some way, probably because I didn’t die and I paddled back into the lineup. During their instant replays and stories of the waves they just caught, they tell me that they are leaving the next day to travel Fiji in search of waves and they want to know if I want to tag along as their new mate.
I’m stoked. I went to on this surf trip by myself, fully expecting adventure, and now, here I am in the thick of it. No agenda, no worries and now a pack of friends to hang with.
The next day we are off to no particular destination but we end up at Seashell Resort. The fantasy island of Tavarua looms in the distance offshore, beckoning. The next day we are up before dawn and on the short walk to the boat, the cacophony of the birds in the trees, breaks the still air of the morning. Our international crew piles into a small boat and for the next half hour we are greeted with the sound of a whining ninety horsepower engine redlining at full RPM’s. Sadly we pass within distance of my dream wave, Cloudbreak. This is before the Regulation of Surfing Areas Decree allows for open surfing, so we settle on Wilkes Passage where I get to practice my backhand snaps.
After a night of sleeping on mattress hard enough to break coconuts open, we decide to move on and splurge, and book a room at the Hideaway Resort in Sigatoka. There was an almost head-high right coming in just a short walk from the hotel and I thought I’d check it out. I talked with some of the locals first because the paddle out looked kind of gnarly. They said a few people have died there, getting sucked into whirlpools next to the reef. I was a little hesitant, until I saw someone paddling out. I jumped in behind him and paddled with all my strength. It was one of the scariest paddles I’ve ever done. I was in this thirty foot channel and when the swell came in, it bulged with water and as the water receded, I sank down about two or three feet and the jagged reef seemed to rise from the abyss and close in around me. Whirlpools swirled trying to pull me in. My arms never strained so hard to paddle me out of there. I finally made it out with great relief and had fun surfing the little right, but I opted to surf into the shallows of the reef and took my chances cutting up my feet, rather than make that paddle through what I called, “Moses’ Hellhole.”
The swell dropped to almost nothing the next day, so my mates and I found ourselves on a walkabout. We ended up a couple of bays away from the hotel and saw about fifty native Fijian men and women gathered around on the beach. We inched closer to see what was happening. The entire village turned out, to fish the bay using an ingenious contraption of vines and palm fronds woven together. They laid it out in a straight line about three-hundred yards long on the beach. My friends and I asked the elders if we could help and they were more than happy to let us. It was a daunting task pulling the man made net in the water. It took every villagers strength to slowly close the net in on itself. The palm fronds woven to the vines look like a barrier to the fish, and as the tide drops and the villagers “net” closes the distance, the fish all gather in the middle, swimming confused. We all tighten up the three-hundred yard barrier to about a thirty foot circle. The elders and villagers pour in a bunch of ground up kava in the fish circle, and it puts them in a trance. Spearing and bagging begins and they haul enough fish to sell on the market, to pay for a years worth of supplies for the village. It was great to be a part of this experience.
I have only been in Fiji a week and have seen and experienced so much. A new swell is going to fill in, in a couple days but my fifteen-hundred word limit has been reached. If you want to know what happens in week number two, see my article in next month’s Surfer magazine. Bula!
Bio on Michael Harlow
aka Tropixman
Growing up in Hermosa Beach, CA, I have been surfing since six years old. I moved to Maui at eighteen and have lived in the Hawaiian Islands three times. My passion is traveling the Pacific Islands in search of surf and scuba diving. I am a certified Divemaster, sailor, videographer and surfer. I now live in San Diego, CA with my wife and two children. My experiences have allowed me to create http://www.tropixman.com as a free tropical information destination online resource. I also want to give back to Fiji, so if you could please mention http://www.lolomafoundation.org/ to your Surfer readers.
