I walked back into the bar on Namotu Island to find, unsurprisingly, Occy belting out a tune with only the karaoke machine as company. Karaoccy as it’s been dubbed. The last time I saw him doing this at Namotu was two years ago, and he had just been bundled out of the corresponding event in the early rounds. It was 3pm in the afternoon, he’d obviously had several quarts of liquid painkiller to get over his loss. He was halfway through Credence Clearwater Revival’s Proud Mary, in a way only Occy can – shamelessy and embracingly bad. Every part of his face is operating independently from the other. And the bar is deserted. Just him. Fast forward two years, and Occ breezes through his corresponding heat. I arrive back from the judging tower on dark to find Occ glued to the karaoke mike, murdering, in order, Culture Club’s Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?, Queen’s I Want To Break Free, then Lionel Richie’s Dancing On The Ceiling. It matters not that it’s almost certain the event is going to run tomorrow, and that he’s going to be surfing against Kelly, he’s already had a couple. And why not? He’s retired now, and after 20 years on tour, hasn’t he earned a couple of afternoon shandies? “I have a skulldrag every day I’m here, then a few light beers to balance it out,” he laughs.

The morning started out early, with a check of both Restaurants and Cloudbreak. It was an embarrassment of riches. Restaurants was a foot or two bigger than it had been the day before, four-to-five and pretty damn perfect. Cloudbreak, however, was something else again. Eight-to-10, airbrushed offshore, and turning itself inside-out across the shelf. It was the scene of a pretty mad freesurfing session. Unlike the previous day when the respective islands were demarcated into surfing separate breaks, there were plenty of guys from both Tavarua and Namotu Islands out there, Americans and Aussies, all scrapping together. The stars included Timmy Reyes, Bobby Martinez, CJ and Mick Fanning. Mick took the bomb only to have it implode with him inside it. He snapped his board but wasn’t alone; watchin from the tower I watched eight 3’3”s float past into the lagoon, the front halves of eight previously intact 6’6”s.

But that was as good as it got for a while. True to form, the second the hooter blew the tide began strangling the barrels shut, and the super-southerly swell began to march up the reef instead of into it, and it stayed that way until lunchtime. Suddenly, it looked like the guys freesurfing in at Restaurants, Kelly and Parko included, seemed to be getting the best of it. But then, as quickly as it had gone weird, it turned back on, beautifully. It started during Miky Picon’s heat with Bruce, and only got better, peaking during the second-last heat of the day, Taj against Tiago Pires. As he’d done in Tahiti, the Portuguese debutante stood up, dropping into a giant pit on his backhand for a high nine, and backed it up with another long, snaking pit that would’ve gone 10s had he squeaked out the end. Suddnely Taj was chasing 17 points and looking in serious danger of sinking. It only took him a couple of minutes to answer back, and answer back he did, dropping into the barrel on the corner ledge, and popping out at Shish Kebabs, 100m down the line. It was straight 10s, and when he backed it up with a seven he was back. “My god,” he blubbered later, “how good did it get?” You had to feel for Tiago. He lost with a perfect 10 in Tahiti to an interference against Parko, and now he lost with a 9.7 against Taj in Fiji. I’m sure they’ll be valuable lessons.