Kelly Slater’s Cloudbreak Rehab

Kelly Slater pulled out of the Corona Bali Protected on short notice yesterday, now, less than 24 hours later, he’s paddling into Cloudbreak bombs like the one above.  

The best swell Fiji’s witnessed this year coincidentally aligned with the waiting period for the CT’s Keramas comeback and while Kelly’s foot may be restricting him from surfing at a ‘championship tour level’, it wasn’t enough to make him skip the thundercloud at this size. 

If you haven’t heard, Cloudbreak’s been firing the last few days, and this morning marked the peak of these back-to-back swells. The morning was overcast and plagued by troublesome devil-winds, but as the dreary skies parted, the wash throughs started to wane and groomed double-overhead-plus sets started marching in.

The majority out there were chipping in courtesy of the tow-rope, but thus far both Kelly Slater and Tom Lowe have lucked into a few with nothing more than sizeable boards and the power of their own two arms.

Conditions are looking to improve throughout the afternoon too, so expect a lot more of where this came from.

In the meantime, you can always tune in to slightly oversized and onshore Keramas, although it doesn’t quite cut it in comparison does it?