Jordy Smith, On the tarmac with his gal, Lyndall Jarvis, en route to Maldives

“I really hope we get some waves,” Jordy Smith told Stab on friday, of his trip to the Maldives. “It’s a super fun place. I’m basically going there to get some warm water sections.”

With such a large gap between WT events, (seven and a half weeks from end of the Billabong Pro, Rio’s waiting period to start of the Billabong Pro, J-Bay’s waiting period), Jordy’s had more than enough time to head back to his home in South Africa, sort out some affairs and organise a relaxing, bath water get-away with new gal-pal, Lyndall Jarvis. The pair are heading to the Maldives for a romantic sojourn (with some surfing on the side) before Jords heads back home to do the Mr Price Pro, Durban. The South African prime event is one of very few Jordy will do this year:

“I’m gonna do a few Prime events this year, but only the ones that are on my home turf. And possibly Hawaii, I guess. It’s just convenient, so why not? With the one-world ranking, it’s more important to do the Prime events now and there’s more dream tour guys doing them. For the guys that aren’t doing too great in the first half of the year, I think it’s important to do Primes, to try and keep their seed up.”

Jordy also said that the Mr Price Pro will serve as a good warm-up for the contest that he most wants to win: “Another victory at J-Bay would mean a lot. I mean, there’s nothing like your first win, but backing it up with another is even better.”

And how about competing in your backyard, Jordy? “I’ve never, ever thought about competing at home as being harder ’cause of expectation. I think it goes a lil’ bit both ways. You wanna win ’cause it’s home, but then again you have everybody behind you, so it makes things very comfortable.”

For more of Blake Kueny’s awesome photography, jump over to his site here.