Teahupoo

Teahupoo (pronounced Chow-poo) is a village on the South-West coast of the island of Tahiti, French Polynesia and produces one of the world's biggest waves. Teahupoo holds numerous surf and body board competitions such as Billabong Pro Tahiti surf competition that is an annual event at Teahupoo. The giant waves which are created at Teahupoo and can get as high as 70ft due to the bend of the wave when it hits the reef below the sea level. Unlike other places such as Jaws, the di reef below the sea level at Teahupoo is very shallow so when energy from waves that are entering Teahupoo in deep water and it suddenly hits a shallow reef it instantly breaks and bring with it huge amounts of water making the wave not only very high but very thick as well. Teahupoo is best surfed between April to October when the wind and rain is frequent especially when it is in the cyclone season.

   

 
 



This diagram here gives us an idea of how shallow Teahupoo really is at only 3 feet (1 metre) which means that when the enormous waves from the pacific suddenly drop onto a very shallow reef this creates very big and very thick waves.