Avoca Point

Avoca Point

Different boards

Different conditions

Night surfing

Just enjoying the uncrowded night waves

Banana Classic

Traveled south to the Farm for the Banana Classic. Some great waves and a cool mal club.

fun waves

Madzi in Blue

Mim in Red

Central Coast Regionals

Madzi and I had a fun surf at the local regionals.

a Grom’s view of the Magoo

The Magoo charity classic continued this year with another year of good surf and money raised for charity. For the week prior there had been the biggest swell of 2011. Only Fibbo was waxing up his log.

The first day of the classic was moved from an unsurfable Soldiers to a fun decent sized lakes beach. The set waves could offer some fast lefts and rights. The paddle out was fine but only once the very hazardous shorebreak was past. Mikey Brown snapped his board while paddling out. There were some great rides ridden and huge steak sandwiches eaten and day one was a good fun day.The second day was cleaner and about two foot bigger than the day before.

We started again at Lakes beach. The older surfers were sent out like guinea pigs to test the conditions. The officials then decided it was unsurfable and moved us to a much calmer cabbage tree bay. Upon arrival, Cabbage displayed some perfect looking left barrels. As riders threw themselves into these waves (sometimes literally) they discovered that they weren’t as easy as they looked. But, with the tide rising and lots of practise, there was some amazing barrels to be had.

A highlight of the day was Barry ‘Magoo’ McGuigan paddling out showing the same bravery as he shows during his current battle with cancer. All up a very successful event with good waves and over $82,000 made to donate to cancer research on the Central Coast.

(this is a piece I wrote for my mal club's newsletter)

Crescent Head

Up to Crescent again for another

Crescent Head Malibu Classic.

This year the surf lived up to the high expectations that the surf report had to offer of good south east swells.

Pumping waves all day everyday with some sets coming through from the point to the sand.

A highlight for me was watching Harley Ingelby in the Open Mens Final smashing the nicely formed waves.

Noosa Festival 2011

Noosa Festival

March means Noosa Festival. No school, sunny days and long peeling waves. From the opening ceremony (featuring our own Barry Magoo) and paddleout through to the afternoons’ entertainment it was nine days of pure stoke.

At the start of the Festival there was good size southerly swell that wrapped around the points. It looked like there would again be solid waves as many predicted rises. As the surf slowly shrunk, the noseriders, logs and old mals were brought out and the free surfing displays at Johnsons and tea tree were spectacular.

While some people chose to ride logs in the competition, most of them were quickly eliminated as the waves were messy and fat with not much wave area for those inclined for a noseride. Josh Constable combo-ed his whole semi final and ended with his fourth Noosa Festival win (which may or may not be because he surfs there every day). The finless pro was amazing to watch with all kinds of strange finless boards being ridden with alais, sea glass and 20ft toothpicks all being ridden with skill.

On Friday night central coaster Mike McCarthy played before the premier of Stoked and Broke. An amazing movie featuring Cyrus and his mate Ryan who trek from one side of San Diago to the other with limited money (which at one stage drops down to 24cents) to show that money isn’t needed to be stoked on surfing. Riding logs, broken guns, twin fins, shortboards and random pieces of foam it is a great movie. After the premier bleeding knees club and dolphins played while Dane Peterson had an art and photography exhibition.

Although the waves weren’t great by the end and the comp area had to move, the GSI Noosa Festival of surfing 2011 was another great time.

(this was a piece I wrote for my Mal club's newsletter)