this is Cloud 9 in the Philippines. it gets good like this once in a lifetime. you need a massive super typhoon, right swell direction, right winds, right tide, and right weather. back in 2005, i was getting the best barrels of my life on this day. John Callahan was shooting from the tower and captured my most precious moments on an island off the Philippines called Sarigao.
this is Rifles in Indonesia. it gets good like this once in a lifetime. you need a massive low pressure storm, right swell direction, right winds, right tide, and right weather. back in 2010, i was getting the best barrels of my life on this day. Kenji Sahara was shooting from the water and captured my most precious moment on an island off Indonesia called Kandui.
both Cloud 9 and Rifles are very fickle. all the stars have to align for it to rise at its best. back then, we really didn’t have reliable surf reports so not too many people knew when it will be good. we just were lucky to be there at the right time for these historic days. now that the surf reports are pretty accurate, there will be hundreds of surfers waiting for days like this. and even then, you still have to be lucky for everything to be perfect. so if you ask me to go to Cloud 9 or Rifles again, i would say “absolutely not!” i’m not going to tarnish my perfect dreams…
