"Look Mum, an arm for each time I won my eleventh world title." Pic: ASP/Kirstin

The defeat at Bells could have shattered any confidence the “greatest surfer of all time” had in defying the odds and winning yet another world title at the ripe old age of 39 – and in a way it did.

Following Bells, Kelly, sucked it up, and made the long journey to Brazil for the Billabong Pro, only to limp to a thirteenth place – hardly a title chasing result. In fact Kelly considers any result outside the semi finals a throw away when a contemplating title contention.

How did he turn things around? Pull a no-show at the next event, that’s what! To re-charge his solar cells Kelly jetted to his favourite tropical Fijian island of Tavarua, and surfed his brains out. On one particularly perfect afternoon at ‘Restaurants’ he spent more time in the barrel than the rest of us will in a lifetime. Missing Jeffery’s Bay wasn’t planned, it just happened. Out of character it worked a treat.

Not every wave Kelly surfed in Fiji this year was a pipe dream [full story of this wave HERE]. Pic: Rod Owen

Teahupoo in Tahiti was the next event on the calendar, and with a bank full of tube time experience, Kelly took the win in style. Growing an extra leg in the final against Owen Wright it what was an awe-inspiring performance.

The following two events in New York and then Trestles saw him finish second (to Owen) and then first again respectively – it was done. The king had his Chakra back. He’d refreshed his patience button and was again surfing in the sub-conscious.

Getting in the groove at Trestles [read Luke Kennedy's Hurley wrap up HERE] Pic: Joli

With a trifecta of wins behind him, and a built up round three win over Aussie slugger Dan Ross at the Rip Curl Pro Search event, the fat lady cleared her throat and bellowed. Absurdly, a mathematical anomaly was uncovered, and he was declared the 2011 champ for a second time three days later. Far from a fizzer, it was live sporting gold. Not only did he defeat two new school Brazilian super stars young enough to be his long lost sons in Gabriel Medina and Miguel Pupo, he bagged a ten point tube ride (unofficial) after the hooter that was so deep two thirds of the diligent webcast camera crew missed it. If not for the enthusiastic San Franciskies on the beach, who’d returned for the ‘Kelly Slater world title winning heat mark II’, we may have missed it too. Luckily, one camera stayed wide on the wave – on replay a Slater-barrel-bullet-train could be seen flying out into the flats in the bottom left hand side of our screen... [With a shaking of the head] I pondered, 'Kelly’s world title wins, sure the script is getting monotonous, but damn the guy almost always tags and bags them with flare and a sense of theater. Worthy. Worthy. Worthy.'