Sri Lankan perfection back on tour

I WAS excited to see the World Surf League announce that a high-level Qualifying Series event has been reinstated in Sri Lanka and it will run during late September.

The last and only time Sri Lanka ran a WSL event was in 2010 and I have fond memories of the super fun waves that break at Arugam Bay on the southeast coast.

It was a great event with non-stop waves and a terrific cultural experience.

While I failed to make the semis or final, I reflect on a super tough quarter-final heat where I was defeated, narrowly, by the fast-emerging Julian Wilson, who then went on to win the event and qualified for the Championship Tour that year.

From all reports the village of Arugam Bay has developed a lot since then and has grown significantly on the back of a booming surf tourism industry.

It is now a wonderful village offering excellent accommodation and food options.

It’s a venue I often say is super cultural and friendly as a surf holiday destination and the sort of location that is ideal for family surf holidays as distinct from hardcore surfing holidays.

The whole Asia region is full of outstanding surf and Sri Lanka simply adds to it.

Hopefully they score the same waves for this new event that we scored back in 2010. There’s been plenty of late winter waves recently, but the coming four days don’t look all that great. Light onshore winds today and uneven 1m surf. Tomorrow should be fun with clean 1m surf then small clean beachbreaks through the weekend.