Was the construction of the boulevard and its seawall the reason why the break stopped working? Or can it all be blamed on global warming and rising seawater levels?
Siargao has over a dozen surf breaks along the coast of General Luna alone and judging by how much attention the other spots are getting, no one’s really missing that one surf break at the boulevard. But even the ever-popular Cloud 9 break itself is behaving peculiarly this year. Recently, waves have been unusually small, mushy, and inconsistent.
“I have been watching the ocean here for 13 years,” says Sagana Resort owner and Siargao resident Gerry Degan, “For the Western Pacific to be this calm for such a long time is quite an anomaly”.
 Mr. Degan is also one of the organizers of the upcoming Billabong Invitational. This international surf competition is held in the month of September and attracts surfers from different countries such as Australia, the USA, Indonesia, and Japan. While Cloud 9 has never disappointed and has always performed after a lull in previous competitions, Mr. Degan says, “This year, things are different from previous years… I am in no way as confident as predicting what will happen weather-wise as I was in the past.”
Cloud 9 hasn’t seen a hollow barreling wave in nearly two months. The unusual weather conditions and climate patterns of 2008 are making it harder to predict surf forecasts.
For one, the month of March in Siargao was still wet and rainy when it should have already been the start of the dry season. Much of the roads remained submerged in water due to the unexpected heavy rains that persisted throughout the beginning of summer. Unusually high floodwaters destroyed all of the crops planted in the fields spanning the distance between General Luna and Dapa, and the road between these two towns became impassable when a downpour occurred.
Tide levels on the coastlines of Siargao are also visibly getting higher and higher. In the past years, people were still able to walk on a shoreline during the months when the tide levels would be at their highest. But in December of 2007, the tide levels were so high that the water not only ate up the entire shoreline, but also eroded nearly a meter of coastal land in some parts of General Luna.
Is Siargao Island going the way of Lohachara Island (the first inhabited island to be lost to the rising seas)? With scientists predicting anywhere between a 2-foot up
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