Opening Rounds

The swell arrived and the World Title remains on the line at the Pipe Masters

By SURFER

| posted on December 10, 2012

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Comments

john raffaghello
December 14, 2012 8:22 am

I need to move back to hawaii.

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Echoes of the Über-Oop

Yesterday afternoon I was back at the hotel in Sanur, having beat the traffic, having just filed my post for the day, full of self congratulation at my endeavour and initiative and was just contemplating running down for a quick surf when I first heard the commotion. Bemos from the contest were dropping crew back to the hotel from Keramas, and they were all buzzing as they got out, the buzzing paraphrased thusly: “Holy shit!”, “Oh my God!”, “That was the single greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” That kinda stuff, much of it coming from the ASP judging panel who themselves were still in disbelief. Pretty soon the foyer of the hotel was full of people with phones and laptops gorging data, all watching and replaying the same video. They were double checking they hadn’t been seeing things.

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Stop Me if You’ve Heard This One Before

They say if you walk in like you own the place, then you’re halfway to where you’re going. Well, Kelly announced his arrival at Cloudbreak this morning by burning some hot laps on his jet ski through the lineup, shooting follow-footage of local surfer Aca Lalabalavu who was heavily piped at the time. Kelly dismounts and paddles straight out for his quarter against Seabass, and that’s when things really start to burn. John John, still dripping wet, catches Kelly’s first perfect 10 and comments, “I don’t know, but from here it kinda looked like a 20.” John John didn’t know how prophetic he was being, because it’s only a matter of minutes later that Kelly draws another wall of Pacific toward him. It’s bigger, foamier and throatier than the first, and tail of his 5’10” quad is doing it’s best to skip out from under him. CJ offers, “Man, that thing was a bull ride!”…and it was another 10. That’s your perfect heat, right there folks, the fifth in pro surfing and Kelly’s second. History made before 10am. The signs for the rest of the day are there early. When Kelly comes in and starts talking about the significance of the feat, he adds the caveat that, “Man, the way the waves are out there today, someone could go real close to getting another one.” And when he says someone, well, you probably know who he means.