By PHIL JARRATT
JUST last week I was commenting on how well the planets were aligning for swell events in the Coral Sea and near Pacific in the coming weeks, then pow! In comes Cyclone Winston, smashing poor little Fiji last weekend.
Knowing that the worst was expected to hit overnight on Saturday, I checked social media for messages even before I checked the surf cams last Sunday morning. Word from Mandy and Scottie O’Connor on Namotu that they’d been slammed but were OK. Nothing from Jon Roseman on Tavarua, but I assumed that just across the strait they’d be OK too.
Not so great on the northern part of Viti Levu, where five people died and villages were decimated when one of the most brutal weather events ever felt in the South Pacific – winds of 240 kilometres for hours on end – slammed them mercilessly.
I imagine many readers will be familiar with the beautiful islands of Fiji, just four hours flying from here, but if you aren’t let me say that it is one of those places of the heart. You go there once and you are forever attached. Sure, it has its problems, such as across-the-board corruption and constant conflict between the Indian merchant class and the dispossessed native people, but at village and community level there is such a warm and welcoming vibe that I often wonder why I haven’t spent more time there over the 35 years since my first visit.
As far as the surf is concerned, I’ve enjoyed more good waves in Indonesia, but the very best sessions in my life have been in Fiji. Absolute gems at Cloudbreak and Restaurants, plus super fun times at Namotu Lefts and Swimming Pools. We were all there for the Millenium, first to ride a wave in the new century. And most of us did, hangovers and all, except the late, great Miki Dora, who hid under his bed, convinced that the Millenium Bug was going to end the world (and Miki’s ended soon enough, two years later.) And Kelly Slater Week on Tavarua, where a few of us lucky souls not only got to watch the king at play in perfection, but to share a few waves with him.
So as we waited for more news on the damage front, I phoned my friends Shaun and Carol Cairns, who had only recently returned from a wonderful vacation at Terry and Gill Cairns’ island hideaway. They were concerned not just for the house but for the surrounding villagers because, like everywhere in Fiji, these neighbours had become firm and lasting friends.
Well, as I write, we still don’t know about the fate of the house, or the people, but the worst seems to have passed. In fact, by the time you read this, we’ll no doubt be enjoying a beautiful ground swell off the back of Winston. As you slide into a good one, please spare a thought for our friends just across the sea, mopping up the mess and trying to put the pieces back together.
A night at the library
Here’s cheers to our Noosa Library Service for putting on another fun night of surfing entertainment last week. Sadly the thunderheads popped up on the horizon just at the wrong end of the afternoon, and the Starry Nights outdoor screening of the Noosa Surf Festival documentary, 8 Days of Pure Stoke, had to be moved indoors, but the move did nothing to diminish the good spirits of the library staff, nor of the almost-full house who braved the threat of a storm and gave the chat show and films a rowdy thumbs up.
The crowd was also treated to a sneak preview of the new film I’ve been working on with Panga Productions, Men of Wood and Foam, and to some epic big wave footage from the recent “Jaws” swells in Hawaii by film-maker Greg Huglin.
For the aficionados and surfboard tragics, Wood and Foam will get another screening at the Laguna Real Estate Noosa Festival of Surfing on Sunday 6 March, just after dark on the beach screen, in the presence of many of the grand old men of the industry, including Bill Wallace, Barry Bennett, Denny Keogh and Joe Larkin. Free event, no bookings required.
While I was signing Cup of Tea With God books at the library the other night, a wiry surf dude of similar vintage came up and introduced himself. It was surfer/photographer Ian Ingram, whose expression I stole for the title of the Noosa National Surfing Reserve book, a “loan” that hopefully falls short of outright plagiarism.
The comment, “Surfing National Park Noosa at six feet would be like having a cup of tea with God”, is often attributed to Bob McTavish, but in fact it was coined by Ian, then a Canberra-based surf nazi, for a magazine article in 1966. Ian’s a good sport about it, and I’m currently enjoying his own book about the times, Capital Surfers: Surfing Australia’s East Coast in the Sixties, available at Annie’s Books, Peregian.
