Billabong Pro stays on hold due to unfavorable conditions

OUR Tahitian paradise has become very wet in the last 24 hours, and under the dumping skies overnight, the surf has dropped considerably as well. With the ocean in sloth mode, organisers have been left with no option but to again cancel proceedings in both the men’s and women’s divisions of the Billabong Pro Tahiti for the second consecutive day.

We finished our report to you yesterday with some tales of the milk-run travel adventures of our Brasileiro sisters Jacqueline Silva and Maria Tita Tavares in getting here to Tahiti. Today we’ll give you another yarn, again from Brazil, this time involving Rio’s veteran Victor Ribas.

Like all well organised professionals, Victor booked his passage to the Billabong Pro Tahiti weeks and weeks ago, with what he had every reason to presume was a competent travel agent. Not!  The night before he was booked to fly, last Tuesday, the so-called ‘agent’, phoned Ribas to inform him that he’d been unable to get him on the flight which he had previously advised the goofy footer he was confirmed on.

After delivering what was most likely a well chosen array of expletives, Victor continued packing his bags, and went to bed undeterred that some how, some way, he would still get his Brazilian butt on a plane seat bound for Tahiti. He didn’t sleep too well.

He awoke the following morning and made his way to the airport early hoping to get a booking, but found that indeed, all flights were full. Reasoning that he would have a better chance of getting aboard a Pacific-bound flight from the other side of the continent, Victor flew to Chile’s Santiago airport and pursued his mission there, but again all flights were full.

Little Victor harassed the airline desk clerks with his passionate Latin American best efforts, but got only rebuttals. He was offered a flight via Los Angeles, but that would not get him here to Tahiti in time for the first day of the event waiting period. He continued to plead his case as a professional sportsman who had to get to his event.

Finally, as the flight was being boarded, after 30 minutes of telling Victor that the plane was over-booked and there was no possibility of him flying, the clerk changed his story that, okay, he could be fitted aboard. The cost of the pay and fly ticket was a staggering usd$2800. Victor duly presented his credit card for the purchase, but a swipe of the plastic revealed he had insufficient funds to complete the transaction. Bugger!

Source: Global Surf News

>> SURF NEWS INDEX <<