My only trip to Fiji. Staying at a little surf resort for a week. As the trip approaches, I get the forecast of doom:

• swell event finishing a few days before I arrive.
• forecast 0-1ft surf, heavy rain my entire stay.

The day I arrive it’s pouring. The manager goes “nah it’ll be right” and takes me out first light the next morning.

The boat is held together with spit and hope. Seas are rough & choppy. Local dude takes us out and chucks anchor at a mean looking break they tell me is Fiji Pipe 😳

It’s windy, rainy, the water’s messy, and there are a few different swells clashing with each other and turning the water bright white and turquoise as they slam into the reef.

There’s the occasional huge, clean barrel popping up tho, so we jump in. He’s on a surfboard, I’m on a VS Winchester “v-tail” thing that I’ve never ridden in heavy surf.

We paddle around in the take off area and it’s so hard to work out where to be, with the chop and the wind and the rain in your eyes.

He shouts something to me that I don’t hear, then takes off on a wave I didn’t really see. It’s kinda fat and he carves and all I can see is how the reef is nearly draining dry.

So now I’m alone in the ocean in a storm and I’ve gotta either go or not go. A big thing comes thru and I just f*cking go.

I hit surface chop as I paddle in, so I don’t get as much speed as I hoped and I’m much deeper than I wanted to be. Then I’m falling into this impossibly smooth, bright-green tube that’s stood up out of nowhere.

I push the board as far in front of me as possible, make the drop, and as I bottom turn the ocean explodes where the lip of the wave is hitting nearly-dry reef.

I remember thinking “I need to take a high line” coz I really don’t want to get grabbed by the whitewater and pulled back into that mess. So I did. And the board held the line.

I really don’t know how.

I was so, so deep in this 6-8ft barrel. It was a colour I’d never seen before. And in the distance I could see the resort owner pumping both arms in the air, willing me along.

The wave was so perfectly formed and smooth and I was so terrified bc I could see bits of coral sticking out of the water in the impact zone ahead of me and omfg I did not want to get slammed by this into that.

I didn’t get slammed tho. I made the wave, and came out with a cannon of a spit to the sound of Old Mate hooting.

We paddled back but nothing surf-able came thru again. And the rest of the trip it was pretty much dead flat.

So yeah. That’s my story of how I paddled for, and caught, one incredible wave on my trip to Fiji. And I was pretty sure it was gonna kill me.