Cloud 9 in Siargao Island
Jes Aznar for The New York Times
Ondine Cohane recently profiled “a teardrop-shaped island that’s just one of the Philippines’s 7,000-plus, and the southernmost refuge for travelers before the less politically stable region of Mindanao”: Siargao.
She writes:
[T]he island is known to surfers, largely because of its fabled break, endearingly called Cloud 9. It stands in the firmament of the best rides on the global circuit, a fast and powerful monster because of the water that sweeps in from the Philippine Trench in the Pacific Ocean. In the fall the arrival of the habagat, a weather system fed by southwest winds and easterly currents, creates even more monumental tubes. Local lore credits a drug runner-turned-surfer with putting Cloud 9 on the radar — and in the decades since, it has drawn world pros for an international tournament hosted by companies like Billabong and Quiksilver. A small industry of hippie-style guesthouses, bars and surf schools has followed.
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