fishing + van + sandy point

Possibly the worst summer ever for Victoria with no swell and no wind so I decided to head up to Cairns, QLD to go fishing for a few days.



Weather was awesome and we had a good time out on the Great Barrier Reef, it was perfect fishing conditions - the whole ocean was pretty much dead flat!


Back in Melbourne I finally got my van set up finished so I can go roadtripping in luxury with all my gear. Massive thanks to Lock for the help.


Now I am spending two weeks down at Sandy point, the world renowed speed sailing destination that can deliver some pretty fun wavesailing as well. So far no real swell or wind but hopefully will get some jumping tomorrow.

phillip island

had an ok day at phillip island today. it was very cold for summer - snow up on the mountains!! wind started off pretty cross shore with some logo high sets before turning onshore fast, kinda ruining it. still it was nice to be in the water.
ive had a few sessions at this spot now and it has potential to get seriously epic. most of the times ive sailed there it has just been junky wind swell. cant wait to score it with a powerful ground swell!





last time i was there the wind was light and we ended up getting swarmed by surfers who ended up just burning me every single wave...


when we came in there was a dead seal on the beach that been mangled up pretty nicely. there were some large teeth marks in it and it was missing its rear portion! seeing as this break is just around the corner from one of australia's largest seal colonies you'd expect there to be some big great whites hanging around... its a pretty popular surf spot and as far as i know no one has been attacked there so the best thing to do is avoid thinking about it!

doesnt look like any wind for the next week... hopefully get a surf though.

corona + geraldton + shq go pro competition

Been back in Melbourne for a few days after the Merimbula corona classic and a trip to Geraldton WA.
The conditions up at Merimbula are generally far from epic but this year in the week leading up to the contest we had good wind and some fun waves to play around in at Tathra. Most of the time it was pretty good with a 4.5 in some punchy 2-3ft beach break waves. Nothing amazing but definitely fun! The wind deteriorated somewhat for the actual event but that was made up for with a few good parties.



Getting back from Merimbula I was only home for about 12 hours before getting up at 4.30am for an early flight to Perth. After sorting out the travel car we hit the road and were in Geraldton by mid afternoon. Historically every time I have been to Geraldton there has been horrendous conditions, usually it is flat and there is barely a breath of wind. The first few days were pretty good with wind around 25-30 knots and some logo high ramps out the back at Coronation. I was feeling pretty retarded not jumping on port tack for at least 6 months so the best conditions of the trip largely went to waste!

After a couple of days it troughed out... Let's just say when there is no wind Geraldton doesn't have a lot going for it! Over the four windless days I was going insane from boredom. I think we went grocery shopping for 'fun' on one occasion.
Finally the wind came back and we had a few fun days at corros usually either on a 4.2 or 3.6. Unfortunately the swell was pretty tiny making it a bit frustrating to actually learn new moves but by the end of the trip I was getting some good pushloops. After 5 days or so of wind, it dropped out again, the call was made to head to Lancelin before flying out of Perth. Wasn't much swell or wind there but at least there are a few things to check out in the area.


Back in Melbourne I found my board had been smashed up pretty badly by the airlines... Definitely was not happy! No wind so far but should be something early next week.

SHQ Go-Pro comp
SHQ is running a competition where you upload a short clip of yourself sailing into different categories and then people vote to determine the winner. I have two clips under the wavesailing and wipeout sections.
Waves

Wipeouts

Vote for them here
http://www.shq.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=362&Itemid=57

PGD - post gnaraloo depression + cup weekend + corona aka mambo

being back in melbourne for the last month has sucked!!!! conditions have been horrible seeing there has pretty much been no wind and not much swell either.

i've had two sessions down at sandy point but the waves were pretty tiny so it wasnt anything special. one day I had it all to myself with not another person in sight, sunny and warm which was good. it was a nice day to just relax and sail, unfortunately i tweaked my back injury a bit which wasnt ideal, but its starting to feel better now.

Cup Weekend

we had the shq melbourne cup event two weeks ago. that was a bit of fun but the conditions didnt really deliver for the wavesailing series yet again... the wind started off cross shore with half mastish waves which was ok. it quickly swung onshore though by the time we were getting stuck into the heats. i came equal first in the expression session when the conditions were better before having an absolute shocker in the semis - crashing everything, getting dropped in on and consequently getting really angry!! so i didn't make it into the final but at least i won the super session for the biggest move with a large pushloop that went pretty wrong haha.
we didnt get anymore conditions to run another round of competition so i ended up in 5th which pretty much ruins my overall ranking for the year unless we get a discard.




Corona Classic aka Mambo

slim chance that we might finally get some real conditions with a big swell for thurs/fri and potentially a little bit of wind. fingers crossed!
after that the plan is to head up to merimbula for the mambo which is called the corona classic this year. its the 30th anniversary of the event so it should go off!

gnaraloo video + vic wave series round 1

here is the video from the gnaraloo trip.


there were a few issues with people learning how to use the camera! but it worked out ok...

had the first round of the victorian wavesailing series at point impossible today. the conditions were pretty horrible really... super up and down cross shore wind and bumpy, fat waves that were mostly closing out. it was very challenging to sail, i think most people spent 80% of the day bogging around. i ended up 4th which is an ok start to the series but hopefully we get some real conditions at the next event to get everything rolling! james ended up winning with a nice pushy and a few waverides - congrats!

gnaraloo trip

just got back from a trip to gnaraloo. it was pretty good...
we had conditions ranging from 1ft ankle slappers to a consistent 6-8ft grinding down dry reef with the odd 10ft bomb to mix things up!

there were a lot of dramas along the way as you would expect with such a mission, none of my new 2011 gear arrived in time for the trip which resulted in a lot of running around. frustrating!! not to mention my new 400mm camera lens arrived the day after i left... speed demon spotty ended up stabbing himself in the arm! and then there was the usual story of hitting kangaroos, injuries and broken gear.



the sailing itself was fun. on the small days the wave was really quite soft - good to practise some aerial moves. the only problem was the crowds! there was a lot of dodgy behaviour going on with drop ins and snakings being a regular occurence especially when the wind was light. when the swell ended up cranking though it definitely separated the men from the boys as they say. the crowds went from 30 sailors and 5 kiters on one day to 3 sailors and 1 kite the next!




on the big day the conditions were probably the gnarliest i've seen. the waves were stupidly fast, you had to basically speedsail down the face to reach the bottom in time. also low tide was right in the middle of the afternoon meaning the wave was triple sucking with mutant steps appearing on the face before throwing into a heavy barrel. on occasion there were nice big bits of dry reef you had to negotiate during the bottom turn so mistakes could have been very costly. i got a couple of solid ones before going too deep, as i came through the bottom turn i looked up to see a mast high, very heavy lip throwing right over me! i straightened out and luckily made it out in front of the wave as white water exploded behind me. the amount of water ripping over the reef on the inside coupled with dry bits of rock everywhere made it a precarious matter of timing and luck to make it back outside. twice i ended up on the inside and after a few close calls i decided to call it a day and quit while i was ahead with a few solid waves under my belt. there was a lot of adrenalin going that day!








i've put together a video from the trip so that should be online in the next few days...

good to get back on the water

Finally!! After having some consistently good conditions recently it was pretty disappointing when forecasts failed to deliver for two weeks straight.
Yesterday it was looking pretty sketchy but it was worth risking driving 400km for nothing just to get out in some waves again.
Definitely wasn't epic but still fun at Sandy point.






Thanks to Phi for coming and taking to the photos.