Watch: Who Knew Fiji Fires in February?

But El Nino winters can be weird, so when a solid off-season southwest swell flared up recently, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Balaram Stack and a solid group of friends jumped on a plane and headed to Fiji to meet it. 

"The days are longer, and the sun feels like it’s suspended directly above you — which in early February, it pretty much is," writes Surfline, who produced this clip. 

"Sit for long enough in the open water lineup at the amazing Cloudbreak Reef, and it’ll feel as if your eyeballs are about to fall clean out of your head. Yet for two and a half days last week, that’s what a bunch of very good surfers did: sat there as long as they could stand it, because Cloudbreak wasn’t just hot, it was on fire. 

"The reef is exposed to south and SW swells moving up from deep storms in the Southern Ocean and travelling up between Australia and New Zealand — out of the cold and into the tropics. A three to four day journey during which they grow clean and straight, yet hang on to that South Pacific energy. Easterly trade-winds complete the picture. 

"This doesn’t often happen in February. It’s a Southern Hemisphere winter thing, and February is tropical cyclone time in these parts. 

"But when a couple of very off-season storms flared in Fiji’s sweet spot, a happy few jumped on various planes and got there just in time to ride. In the lineup: Ian Walsh, Balaram Stack, Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson, Nathan Hedge, Dean Morrison, Max Beach, Che Slatter, Eden Edwards, Sean Lopez, Tosh Tudor, Ben Wilson, Navi (surname), Dane Snelton, and quite a few more. 

"At the end: A lot of tube time, a lot of sunburn, and if a few dozen eyes were sore, nobody seemed to mind."