So yesterday I could have been surfing with Vanessa Hudgens and Ashley Greene. The High School Musical and Spring Breakers star and Twilight fox, are hot and young and sexy and famous, and Oakley had them over for their Learn To Ride day, as well their press and compression technology launch the night before. I would make a joke about learning to ride Vanessa Hudgens, or compressing with Ashley Greene, but seeing they are so young and beautiful, and I am so old and lonely, I won’t.
They were also the press conference the night before. The night was in keeping with the general off the scale investment in the Oakley Bali Pro. These guys are not fucking around. I mean I was given my press pack on a new ipad, which I was told I could keep. And I am on the record as saying this in no way has influenced my writing of this blog. That would be bribery, something a surf journalist, that most noble of all professions, would never to succumb to.
No I was already pretty sown up. When you are sitting around a pool, scooping cold Bintangs, watching the world’s best surfers go ballistic, with hot chicks, great food and good music, it’s hard to be cynical.

Oakley are investing in the sport, and seem pretty intent on bring new technology to our surfing goods. The press conference showed team riders getting blood tests after every wave in Tavarua, quick dry tee sheets made from the latest of US military technology and $175 boardshorts that increase blood flow, cull lactic acid and are guaranteed to make you surf like Jordy Smith. And even now (all be it typing on my new ipad) it was hard not for a cynical old surf hack not to be impressed. Mind you the free beer and Disney starlets may have helped the cause.
Anyway, it looks like the Oakley Bali Pro is now on extended hold, with a new, solid swell coming in for next week, maybe Monday. The tides look good, the winds light, and we should get some macking Kerama barrels. They finished the last two heats of Round 2 today, a local wildcard taking out Brett Simpson and Wilko smashing Kolohe. The comp was done by 9am, and with four lay days looking likely, you could hear the pop of multiple Bintangs around the pool deck. Not me though, we at Surf Europe are too busy covering the action. And anyway I got this new app on my ipad….