Exclusive Access to Return to Iconic Cloudbreak as Fiji Hands Control Back to Local Chiefs

Elite surfing returns as Cloudbreak goes private!

For thirty-ish years it was the biggest contradiction in the supposed freewheeling world of surfing, private ownership of Fiji’s best wave, the outer-reef Cloudbreak and its cuz Restaurants, the left that flanks Tavarua Island. 

If you wanted to get some of that fine Fijian juice you either had to pay a thousand bucks a night to stay in Tavarua’s primitive bures or sneak in and out on your own boat before the island’s guests arrived and demanded, rightly given the tariff, the return of their private playground. 

Then, in 2010, amid the turbulent post-coup years, the former Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama’s administration opened the door for paupers to surf the mighty Cloudbreak.

Power to the People! Free Cloudbreak Etc!

To quote our own Steve Rees from a few years back.

In 2006, military boss Frank Bainimarama seized power from the elected government in a bloodless take-over motivated by these ethnic tensions and general corruption. In an attempt to boost the flow of foreign dollars into the hands of both groups, Bainimarama spearheaded the 2010 Surfers Decree by giving a shot to the surf-tourism industry, ending exclusivity rights to the few, thereby allowing any charter boat within a wave’s range to bring as many surfers as possible into the water. Cloudbreak and Restaurants, and similar waves were no longer private oases.

Power to the people! The many, oh, so many people.

Surf-tourism is bigger than ever on the Fijian Islands. Because the wave-front resorts no longer control access to the famous waves, stay anywhere you can find, rent a square on a boat, and chance the time of your stupid life. And you can do it cheaper than staying at one of the premiere hotels so guys and dolls like you and me can sport the bill without selling our children. It also spreads bucks into the hands of more native Fijians, indigenous and Indo.

On the negative, this open-door policy (no political discussions in the comments, please) has led to dangerous overcrowding.

Fast-forward to November 24, 2025: Sitiveni Rabuka’s Cabinet, fresh from a marathon session, endorses the Commercial Use of Marine Areas Bill 2025.

This ain’t tinkering, it’s a full repeal of the 2010 Act, a deliberate unmaking of centralised power.

The bill, cleared for parliamentary debate when sessions resume on Monday, envisions reverting ownership of commercially exploited marine areas, surf charters, dive tours, and yacht moorings back to their traditional stewards.

“The new framework, once passed by parliament, will enable the reversion of the proprietary ownership of marine areas used for commercial purposes to the customary owners under a fair and equitable framework,” the government’s post-Cabinet update declares.

Now, with rights to Cloudbreak poised for reintroduction to the Yasawa chiefs and local mataqali (landowning clans), the break could return to a model of controlled privilege.

Customary owners might once again dictate permits, seasons, and shares of the surf camp revenues.

Indigenous institutions, long sidelined, will step into the fray, empowered to administer these zones “for the benefit of the iTaukei,” ensuring decisions honor the rule of law, natural justice etc.

Where do you stand on the idea of the shackles being wrapped around Cloudbreak again?

As a man ages and the cash available for good times grows, it don’t seem like such a bad idea. Very diff to the way I felt at twenty, poor, fit as hell, when it was a slap in the face to a man’s freedom of movement, burn the rich, and so on.