Red Bull Rising: Full Moon Fever

It's a safe bet he didn't think that would entail surfing at one in the morning, in six feet waves, under the combined light of the moon and the Teate's top mast spotlight. As usual, it was Red Bull Rising's Clint Kimmins that was the main instigator and prime mover for the midnight mission.

"Well, yeah, I figured I hadn't enough waves today, plus I was a little bummed about losing today (Clint was cruelly relegated in the final 30 seconds of the heat) and what better way to get over it and score some waves," said Clipper, as hyper-enthusiastic as ever. "It took about an hour to psyche ourselves into it. Once out there we were laughing so much, and it was pretty dark (hence the lack of photographic evidence I'm afraid) but we surfed for an hour and had some epic waves."

It was a pretty bold move - all the Rising athletes had gone free surfing just on dark in waves about as big as this part of the world can get. Tim Boal and Michel Bourez surfed a left on dark called Honkeys which Michel called a solid eight feet. "And that's a Spartan eight feet!" laughed Tim afterwards, referring to Michel's nickname, and the fact that his penchant for massive waves, a function of him growing up in the powerful Tahitian reefs, means, if anything, he tends to underestimates a little. Either way and whatever what you want to call it, the waves were pretty sizey and scary enough in broad daylight, let alone in the middle of the bloody night!

It was just the tonic, after what had been a pretty dismal day, in competition terms, with all he athletes failing to progress in today's heats of the Sri Lankan Airways Pro. "You know it's an emotional rollercoaster, this pro surfing tour," said Kingy reflecting back on the boat, feeling the pain of losing as much as any of the athletes. "But now it's about going surfing, working on it, analysing what went wrong and looking forward to the next event." It obviously helped that just after saying that, he jumped off the side of the boat and started paddling towards some reeling perfection.

"Look, it happens, you are always going to have some bad results," said Gavin Gillette, who was also involved in the night riding mission. "But we'll deal with it and move on. We are in paradise, there are good waves, we can work on our surfing, everyone's psyched to squeeze everything we can get out of the trip." With the forecast looking good and all the athletes so amped, the squeeze is on. Check out the clip to see what's been happening so far, and keep online for more action over the next couple of days.