John Carter
On the boat ride out to the Cloudbreak was the first time we saw them – uniform plumes of spray, each one chasing the next in orderly lines. The strong offshore trades were ripping the tops off the waves as they marched down the reef and, even from a couple of miles away, I could see huge open barrels grinding across the horizon. Prior to coming I had no idea Cloudbreak was an offshore reef, but as our boat passed Tavarua – the exclusive heart-shaped island that formerly had the stranglehold on the rights to surf it – we still had over a mile of open water before we hit the break. The regulations at Cloudbreak all changed in July 2011, when the authorities decreed no island could hold exclusive rights to any wave in the Island chain. The doors were open!