Celebrating 40 Years of Tavarua Surfing History

Tavarua, Fiji is damn near as close as it gets to surfing heaven right here on earth.

The tiny, heart-shaped island in the middle of the Pacific is home to two world-class waves – Cloudbreak and Restaurants – and is a bucket-list destination for any traveling surfer. It’s so perfect that images of the island and its waves look like a postcard, an obscure, unattainable fantasy for most surfers, or a desktop screensaver.

“One day,” surfers whisper to themselves about Tavurua. “One day.”

Now, Tavarau Island Resort is celebrating 40 years.

So, scroll through the images above for a look into the past, and keep scrolling for a little history lesson from Matt Warshaw’s Encyclopedia of Surfing into one of surfing’s greatest discoveries of all time:

“American yachtsman John Ritter noted the likely-looking waves at Tavarua in 1978, and passed the information on to friends in Australia and America; who actually rode the wave first remains unclear. In 1982, Californian Dave Clark, who'd been teaching on nearby American Samoa, spent two months with his cousin camping and surfing on Tavarua. They met with three local Fijian tribes, and secured what they hoped would be exclusive surfing rights to the area's surf breaks. Clark and California surfer Scott Funk quickly built an early version of Tavarua Island Resort, which offered limited occupancy (24 surfers maximum), private cabin accommodations, and a number of amenities for $100 a day.

“The Tavarua surf and the Tavarua Surf Resort both came to the attention of the surfing world in a 1984 Surfer magazine cover story featuring longtime California wave-hunters Kevin Naughton and Craig Peterson. The island quickly became a favorite destination for high-end surf vacationers, and was soon booked solid months in advance. The resort's exclusive rights to Cloudbreak were tested through the '90s, however, as surfers staying on nearby islands sometimes boated over to ride the perfect surf. Clark had procured fishing rights to Cloudbreak's reef, but the legal and ethical grounds of Tavarua Resort's exclusivity was challenged by some Fijian officials as well as surfers. Finally, in 2010, the Fijian government lifted all restrictions on surfing at Tavarua, opening the island's breaks to all-comers, whether paying resort guests or not.”

One day...

***

Don't miss another headline from SURFER! Subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on Instagram, and stay connected with the latest happenings in the world of surfing. We're always on the lookout for amusing, interesting and engaging surf-related videos to feature on our channels.

Whether you're a professional surfer or just an amateur, we want to see your best footage and help you share it with the world. Submit your video for a chance to be featured on SURFER and our social channels. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch high-quality surf videos.