World Class Surfers at Rip Curl Pro Search

After an amazing Day 1 to the Rip Curl Pro Search at the “secondary” location yesterday, Round Two returned to the “primary” location today where the early morning light illuminated a virtually picture perfect scene of 6 foot lines rolling in and caroming off the reef.

Heat One kicked off at 8 am just short of high tide with local wildcard Komang “Gogo” Sujaya taking on Taj Burrow. Komang seemed a bit nervous after Taj got right to work and smacked the hell out of the lip off of his first wave scoring well. Gogo was reluctant to take any big chances at the start, but eventually he got a few and performed very well, but Taj had him on the ropes early and it was too far to go for a comeback.

The bigger sets were swinging wide or breaking too fast, so wave selection throughout the morning was critical, even for the top surfers in the world. Luckily there were several Sea Doo Jet Ski’s that would come in and pick the surfers up and take them back out to the lineup, as the current was running very strong and would have made it a 5-10 minute paddle after each wave!

Next up was one of the most exciting heats yet. Bede Durbidge, who is ranked Number Two now and is having a great year, took on Rip Curl Australia’s wildcard entry Owen Wright. Bede had the heat well in hand and Owen on the ropes, when Owen incredibly nailed a 9.63 right in front of Bede to lead. To make it an epic, Bede came right back on the next wave with a 9.63 of his own to put the heat away! It was really fun to watch.

Next, Rip Curl Indo’s wildcard Made “Garut” Widiarta got his chance to see if he could beat Adriano De Sousa in Heat Three. He got off to a good start with his first wave and had the lead. After he fell trying to find his way out of a barrel on his second wave, Adriano got to work with a short barrel and a couple of hacks to take the lead.

Garut’s rhythm seemed to get thrown off then, for he fell doing a turn on his next wave and then was out of position for most of the rest of the head, while Adriano went to work racking up more points and winning the heat convincingly.

Another great heat to watch was Bobby Martinez against Bruno Santos. Bobby locked into several super deep tubes and just when you thought he would get toasted he somehow rocketed out the end. He has surfed here several times before, so he knew what he had to do…and he did it!

At 12 noon, MC Mark “Bunga” Clift called a 1.5 hour break to let the conditions settle after a couple of slow heats with less than perfect waves coming through. Then at 1:30 p.m. it was called back on but only two more heats were run before Contest Director Damian Hardeman called it off again for the day.

The crew was told to standby on Friday morning in hopes that the conditions will allow the completion of Round Two.

The man didn’t become world champion 8 times by making mistakes, but it seemed on Round 3 of the Rip Curl Pro Search that maybe if Kelly Slater would have hassled Tiago Pires just a bit more in the last few seconds of the heat, given that he had priority, the lead, and less than a minute to go, there would have been a different headline in the news.

To paraphrase his words in a press conference at the opening ceremony before the start of the Rip Curl Pro Search, there is always an element of luck in competitive surfing, and sometimes yours runs out, just like it did for Kelly Slater today. But the show goes on and he is still way out in front in the ASP rankings, so now its time for the other guys to battle it out and see if anyone can catch him.

The day’s action started off at about 7:45am with a rising tide and solid 4-6 foot barrels on offer. Bede Durbidge continued his run by getting the best of Danny Wills in Heat 1.

Joel Parkinson put on another stellar performance in Heat 4, getting a nice barrel in the first minute of the heat and by the time the horn blew he could boast two of the highest scores of the day, a 9.17 and a 9.23, leaving South African Royden Bryson to go free surfing during the rest of his stay Somewhere.

Bobby Martinez also showed his usual talented barrel-riding skills, choosing the highline and blazing down the barrel like a bullet to emerge and tack on a couple of turns. Michael Campbell was on the ropes for most of the heat, but mounted a comeback and narrowly lost by just over a point at the end.

In Heat 9 Mick Fanning left no doubt that his barrel riding is second to none, getting only two waves but posting a 7.17 and a 9.17 to combo Rodrigo, who also only had two waves that totaled 3.90.

The wave conditions were changed every couple of heats, with some heats having few lulls and a decent number of good set waves, and other heats would have 10-minute lulls and then 3-4 waves sets. But it was still very contestable, just requiring good judgment on wave selection and speed in the barrel.

Bruce Irons pulled in and out of a couple of deep barrels to combo Tom Whittaker, and later as the tide sucked out and the waves wound down the corner, Taj Burrow took out Ben Bourgeois.

Brother Andy Irons picked off a couple of long ones, putting together barrels, hacks, and cutbacks to post an 8.0 and a 9.33 to combo Neco Padaratz.

In a rare move, near the end of a long ride Chris Ward got out in front on his roundhouse cutback and just kept going right instead of turning….The fans went crazy! It wasn’t a Kelly Slater switchfoot in the barrel, but it was pretty cool anyways. Yep, he beat Adrian Buchan in the process, closing out Round 4 and the action for the day.

Tomorrow, standby time is called for 6:30 am with the expectation of similar waves conditions as today in order to get things started at 7:00 am and complete Round 4. And the competition ensues…

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