Great surf this weekend

Really enjoyed having a surf this weekend :) Skye and I headed down to Currumbin fairly early on sunday, getting there for 7:30-ish to find that the carparks were jam-packed, the swell was 5ft+ and there was an offshore wind leaving the water glassy and smooth. Lovely.

Now, 5ft swell is pretty big, and tends to come with strong currents and crowds of surfers - it's been a bit beyond me up until this weekend. But I paddled out despite the trepidation, and had a great time. The direction of the swell meant that the waves came marching around the point like a row of ominously unstoppable walls - and more to the point, the waves broke in a long line right across the width of the bay, meaning that there was plenty of room to paddle out wide to get away from the crowds.

The first wave cleaned me right up - I eskimo-rolled to get through and under it, but my board was just ripped out of my hands and I (and the board!) got sucked up inside the wave and rolled over the falls. My longest hold-down yet, and despite sucking in a lungful before rolling over, I was swimming up to the surface to catch a breath before the wave had let me go. It had probably only been a few seconds, but it felt like longer and thinking about it now, I guess I was quite puffed from paddling out before I took the lungful, and tense from the trepidation. The wave took my hairband with it, so for the rest of the surf I must have looked like a mop-headed fool instead of just a pony-tailed fool :)

In all seriousness, those rare moments when you feel the strength of one of the forces of nature put things in perspective. I guess this is one of the reasons people surf - certainly it's one of the reasons I'm enjoying it. I felt very, very small struggling to the surface of the ocean, and I was stunned by how solidly and impersonally the wave had ripped control away from me and had held me underwater. I've had that feeling whilst surfing before, and a top 10 tips in one of the surf magazines was to never underestimate the power of the ocean - because guaranteed that the moment you think you've got it licked, there's a monster wave building up somewhere just out of sight with your name written all over it...

Anyway - I did get nailed by a few other girthy waves, but I also caught a couple of big, clean, powerful faces and managed the takeoff and bottom turn. And a real first for me - I took off down a face, looked up and saw that I'd have to steer around some other guy paddling up the face, and I managed to do it! Luckily for him, I had to steer right (which I can do). If I'd had to have steered left, he would have ended up with 9 foot of surfboard and 5 foot 7 of mop-headed fool in his face :)

To top it off, for my last wave I caught a beaut right into the beach, literally jumping off the board into knee-deep water and taking two steps to get out of the surf and onto the sand. Turns out I had been surfing for a good 2 hours, which is a long session for me, and I hadn't even noticed. After a late breakfast with friends, we went back to the beach and just relaxed, had a snooze, messed about in the calm cool water of the inlet, then went to Rainbow Bay surf club for lunch.

Rainbow Bay was really buzzing - the Quikky Pro starts there in a few weeks time, which is the first event of the world pro surfing tour. We had a great spot on the verandah at the surfclub looking right out over Snapper Rocks, which is exactly where the competition will be held.

Nice food, a couple of very cold beers, and I bumped in Mark Occhilupo (ex-world surfing champ, and general Aussie legend) at the bar - I didn't bother him, just did a quick double-take and let him get on with his lunch.

When we got home, I turned on the TV to watch the end of the second final in the Commonwealth bank one day cricket series, and would you believe it - we won! So, as a fantastic day drew to a close I happily sent a text message to all the Aussies who've been ribbing me about the cricket, simply one word: "sweet"