Voodoo Facelift

Thursday 18 June 2013 Despite working at the Oakley Pro Bali, Craig Jarvis has not surfed, so a Balinese sangoma gave him this facelift as a reminder to get waves. He still managed to file this piece (Jarvi not the sangoma).

The first time I saw Keramas was quite a thing. Small warm-water close-outs on razor sharp coral, with 50 guys out all pumping frantically to get a turn in. “It changes quickly,” I was told, by someone in the know. “It’s a very tidal place.”

Well, it stayed shit as I settled in to watch the Oakley Surf Shop Challenge, the precursor to the Oakley Pro Keramas, the first WCT event at Keramas and the first Oakley WCT event. A couple of waves showed a little bit of promise, but it really was quite underwhelming.

The first heat of the Oakley Pro Keramas paddled out on the turning of the tide, and it was honestly like there was a switch that contest director Tommy Whittaker ha turned on. The first heat quickly evolved into a bit of a tube fest, and just like that it was game on. Dusty got barreled, Bede also found a tube or two, and Adriano pulled off some solid hacks, with the Brazilian going straight through to round 3 for the heat win.

Then the waves got bigger and better, as the tide filled in, and there were some bombs coming through. As the waves increased in size, so the wind started puffing, blowing cross- shore, into the barrels. Tommy Whits had been prepared for this, knowing the weather conditions of the area after being in attendance at previous Oakley Pro Juniors.

“I emailed every single surfer competing beforehand,” said Whittaker, “and I told them that I wasn’t going to be scared of a bit of wind.”

High performance surfing, air games, big alleys and loops, they’re all done in the wind these days and Tom was going to give the surfers the best conditions to throw up huge moves for huge scores. Some surfers (possibly the slightly older ones, but I didn’t say that) were a bit grumpy about it, but all the new school crop were totally stoked, ready to go large with their new moves.

Jordy soon showed everyone how. After trailing his heat against local wildcard surfer Oney Onwar and Matt Wilkinson, Jordy cut loose in the last few minutes pulling off multiple airs, showing all sorts of holds and grabs, and clocked in with his top two scores of 8.33 and 7.13 right at the end of the heat, showing everyone that it was all going to happen in the sky.

Hats off to Jordy though, it soon became apparent that it was easy enough to get into the sky, with the waves’ strong sling-shot effect, but I really wasn’t as easy making it back onto the wave to ride out the airs. Everyone was launching, but by my accounts about 1 in 8 airs were being pulled off successfully. Jordy pulled off about 4 in the one heat.

Travis Logie was unfortunately a no-show, still suffering from some gnarly reef cuts incurred whilst surfing Fiji for the Volcom Pro.

The surprises in the water were Kelly getting knocked out by Freddie P, and Joel Parkinson and Taj Burrow joined him. As mentioned, it seemed that the older guys were struggling to adjust to the wave, especially with the onshore, and failed to get their required scores against their younger opponents.

The day ended on a high note in more ways than one. John John pulled off the highest alley oop in a contest for the biggest alley oop ever seen in a contest and a one move ten-pointer.

It was small and glassy in the morning on day 2 of the event, and Tommy sent the boys out at first light. The seed structure of the remaining surfers soon recalibrated as Kelly, Taj and Joel all advanced through to round 3.

Then Keramas did her tide thing, and the boy had to wait it out for a few hours before it was called back on. the afternoon saw some amazing surfing in some heats and some slow surfing in others as the swell pulsed all day. Gabby Medina stood out for one heat where he pulled off some ridiculous power hooks on his backhand and won the heat with solid surfing instead of an air attack. The man has a full repertoire that he can call on when needed.

The contest will resume with Travis Logie up against the USA’s Brett Simpson.