Jordy Smith was on fire on the second day of the Corona Open J-Bay on Tuesday – and even a shark sighting could not slow him down.
The excitement started with Smith coming up against Kelly Slater.
Slater has announced one more year on tour, and has also signified that he is not too motivated about this event, and is in town to hang out, see friends, surf a few heats and see what happens.
What happened was that he got beaten, and a stoked Smith advanced, almost pulling off a huge air on the inside in the process.
“I’m just really relaxed and enjoying my surfing and hanging with friends and family,” Smith said afterwards.
“This is probably the most calm I’ve ever felt at an event in J-Bay. Maybe it’s because I’m not a front-runner.
“It’s also the first time that I don’t have to pack my stuff and bail immediately afterwards, which is cool. I can just sit here and enjoy my home country.”
On his winning performance against Slater, Smith was composed.“You’ve just got to take your time, you know. You only need three or four big moves to get you big scores,” he said.
“I just wish I had stuck that air. That would have been the heat sealed then, but it’s a game of inches, you know.”
The open faces and barreling sections were most suitable to a certain type of surfing, and a certain type of surfer.
Michael Rodrigues had the speed line and had the long walls figured out, while Wade Carmichael knew when to lay it on rail or slow it down.
Adrian de Souza also surfed with flair and power, with many spectators calling him the surfer of the day in his heat against Pat Gudauskas.
In the late afternoon, the waves got even bigger and better, and Matt Wilko snapped his board in a huge close-out attempt at the bottom gully, in which he came unstuck.
On the very next wave Brazilian rookie Tomas Hermes broke his leash, and his board miraculously washed up at the bottom gully undamaged.
It was a surreal day of perfect surf.
Then a great white shark was spotted in the vicinity and the encounter between Smith and Hermes was put on hold.
Simultaneously, the Facebook webcast went on the fritz, to everyone’s chagrin, and when it reappeared it was only in Spanish. It eventually reappeared, but it seems some online viewership damage was done.
The shark was monitored, it disappeared out to sea and the surfers went back out.
Smith won decisively, and advanced to the fourth round at the expense of Hermes.
The surf forecast for Wednesday looks promising, though it will be hard go beat Tuesday’s pumping conditions.