Cloud 9 joins the Championship Tour: what the reef needs, and whether early November is a good bet

25 October 2026

Cloud 9 was not on the 2026 calendar when the season began. On 1 July the WSL upgraded the Siargao event, which had been a QS 6,000, to a Championship Tour stop for 2026 and 2027, so that at least twelve events could run if the Surf Abu Dhabi Pro could not. On 4 September Abu Dhabi was dropped, with the WSL citing limits on international flights and the situation in the region. That makes the Philippines Pro (31 October to 10 November) stop 11 of 12 and the last one before the Pipe Masters in December.

The field is cut to the top 24 men and top 16 women, including two wildcards each. The full field comes back for Pipeline, which is worth 15,000 points, and each surfer’s best nine results out of twelve count for the title. Molly Picklum takes the yellow jersey to Siargao after winning in Portugal.

What the wave needs

Cloud 9 is a short, hollow right over shallow live coral off General Luna, on Siargao’s east coast, with a boardwalk from the beach out to a viewing tower beside the peak. Our guide (three sources, high confidence) and the other guides we checked agree on most of it:

Swell from the east to north-east, out of the Pacific. Surf-Forecast notes that wind swell is more common here than long-period groundswell.
Mid to high tide, best on the rising tide. At low tide the reef is too shallow to surf.
Offshore wind from the west or south-west; Surf-Forecast says south-west, Surfnerd says west.
Our guide gives about 1 to 3 m; Surfnerd gives a usable range up to about 3.7 m.
A crowded peak in front of the boardwalk. Intermediate surfers usually go to Jacking Horse, a softer reef about 400 m west.

Is early November a good time?

The dates follow the local contest. The Siargao International Surfing Cup started in 1996 and has been on the Qualifying Series since 2014. In 2023 it ran from 25 October to 1 November, and in 2024 from 26 October to 4 November. It was not held in 2020 (Covid) or 2021; GMA gives Typhoon Odette as the reason for 2021. So the CT has taken the slot the local event already used, at the end of the season that guides give as roughly August to November.

The risk is the change of monsoon. PAGASA, the Philippine weather service, declared the end of the south-west monsoon (habagat) on 6 October 2025 and the start of the north-east monsoon (amihan) on 27 October 2025; in 2022 the amihan began on 20 October. In our spot data Cloud 9 faces north-east, so a north-east wind blows straight in from the sea. That last point is our reading of the map, not something the sources state, but it fits the 2024 contest: the WSL described the first day (26 October) as 2 to 3 ft and clean with a strong offshore wind, and Surfing Australia described finals day as 3 to 4 ft and onshore.

Typhoons matter less here than further north. About 20 tropical cyclones a year enter the Philippine area of responsibility and 8 or 9 cross the country; PAGASA says most move north-west, so Mindanao, the region Siargao belongs to, gets fewer direct hits. Its outlook for 2026 is one or two cyclones in each of October, November and December. The big exception was Odette (Rai), which made its first landfall on Siargao on 16 December 2021 and took away the boardwalk and tower. The boardwalk reopened in July 2022.

What our forecast shows

Our contest page has no “will it run” call for Cloud 9: there are no past Championship Tour days there to compare with, so it shows the forecast only. On the evening of 25 October the model had 1.3 to 1.5 m of open-sea swell at 10 to 14 s for 1 to 4 November, easing to about 1 m at 9 to 11 s from 5 November, with light winds of 5 to 10 km/h. A week ahead, treat that as a rough outline. Our two years of model statistics for the spot have at least 0.5 m of surf on 79% of October days and 97% of November days, and water around 29 to 30 °C.

Following it from Portugal

Siargao is on UTC+8. Since the clocks went back on 25 October it is 8 hours ahead of Lisbon.
Competition hours are 7:00 to 17:00 local time, which is 23:00 the evening before to 9:00 the same morning in Lisbon. If you follow it from Europe, most heats run overnight.
The WSL makes a daily call (ON, OFF or ON HOLD) on the event page and in its app. Our contest page shows the same status line with every change, and members can switch on “Email me the WSL calls”.
Training days are 29 and 30 October. On competition days spectators cannot use the Cloud 9 boardwalk or the walkway to the tower.
Local wildcard John Mark “Marama” Tokong, who has won the Siargao event four times (2015, 2019, 2022 and 2023), goes straight into the main draw.

If you are travelling

Siargao’s airport is Sayak, in Del Carmen, with flights from Cebu, Clark and Davao. A travel guide updated on 1 September 2026 says there is no direct flight from Manila, and that the road to General Luna takes 45 to 60 minutes; routes change, so check with the airlines. Our Siargao page lists the other breaks on the island, and the Philippines page the rest of the country.