Jordy Smith, Lay-day lay-back, Jeffreys Bay, South Africa

“It was so flipping small out there,” says South-African Jordy Smith of a lay-day surf he had yesterday at Jeffreys Bay. “You couldn’t even do a proper carve.” Yesterday, after the Billabong Pro was called off for lack of swell, competitors went out for golf, tennis, the gym, the lion park or the airport. But not Jordy Smith.

As photog Ryan Miller puts it: “Jordy spied a window right out front at  midday, with a total of three humans in the water – none of whom were in possession of a sticker on their board. Where in the world at a WT event does this happen? Waist-high, glassy, sunny, perfect waves and barely a soul in the lineup. At Snapper there’d be a few hundred heads out there. Without enough wall to do a carve, Jordy was relegated to doing massive disaster laybacks right over the end bit of the wave, which is just a few inches deep.”