Rider and Words: Keahi de Aboitiz Photos: Colin Drake Location: Cloudbreak, Fiji Date: Thursday 28th April, 2022
It was homeward bound to see the family for Keahi de Aboitiz, but – Keahi being Keahi – there was no way he was just going to stare down from the airplane window from 30,000ft while one of his favorite waves was set to go off…
After an almost three-year hiatus, man it felt good to get back to Fiji again. Over the years it has become one of my favorite destinations, as it offers such a diverse range of conditions that allows you to have fun on pretty much every type of craft possible. With a trip to Australia planned and a really fun looking forecast for Fiji the week before, I couldn't help myself and put all the pieces in motion to try and sneak in a week there before getting back to visit my family.
💎 Premium Content Ahead! 💎
*You will receive our weekly Friday Pump newsletter, plus the latest features, gear tests and giveaway announcements.
Although I wouldn’t exactly consider it a foil wave, I’ve always wanted to try to get a session in at Cloudbreak on the foil, so after a good morning of surfing and with a fairly thin crowd on the water, it seemed like a great opportunity to get out and give it a try. With a pretty solid swell and some wind, I opted for my 4m Mantis and the H-series 800. Winging has become an amazing way to get yourself into bigger, fast-moving waves that you normally can’t paddle into, and the efficiency of the high aspect foils really help with speed while still being able to get up at slower speeds. The other nice thing about winging is it allows you to pick off all the wide ones and ride the shoulder away from people, all while not making any wake.
Although it’s a little tricky in the more offshore winds riding backside, it sure was a lot of fun spending a couple hours whipping myself into a few bombs and testing the speed limit on the H800 which really handles surprisingly well even in that size. One highlight for me was sharing a couple waves with Mason Ho, who I’ve met a couple times in Hawaii and is just as much of a character as he seems in his videos and an awesome person to be around. We wanted to see if we could line up a shot sharing a wave with him looking out of the barrel and managed to get close on one, but things got a little sketchy towards the end. Definitely not something I’d recommend unless it's people you know and the surfers in the line-up are ok with it! I really wish I had a GoPro pointing the other way on some of those waves as it makes for an amazing way to track surfers getting barreled on the right wave, just like the one you see here.
All in all, it was a pretty special experience to check that one off the list and I can’t wait to try and get back to Fiji again sometime soon.
Now subscribe to the world's best foiling magazine!
To get the latest premium features, tests, gear releases and the best photojournalism in the world of foiling, get yourself a print subscription today!
Lift Foils has a reputation for producing both high-quality eFoils and foils. CEO & Co-Founder Nick Leason has been front and center of this since day one. We got a little insight into his R&D processes for both sides of the business…
READ MORE
It’s back to Hood River, this time in the company of Generic Foiling Podcast hosts, Liam & Freddie, as they take the show on the road to the annual AWSI event, in the hope of cutting through the hype and getting the warts ‘n’ all take on the foiling industry today.
READ MORE
A chance encounter with a little wave that held big potential left sailing nomad Bryan Metcalf-Perez with a lingering foil fever fantasy that he couldn’t get out of his head for a month. And with a passing cyclone leaving plenty of swell lying around – it suddenly became an achievable reality. Words: Bryan Metcalf-Perez Photos:
READ MORE