Sandtrax and surf monkeys

After a crap day down at Secret Harbour on the weekend (Super shallow, no shape, every-man-and-his-dog-out-with-a-board) we had a fabulous post work session yesterday. The good thing about the weekend was taking a workmate out and teaching her how to surf. She was very happily installed on the white water with a soft board while I stood in calf high water, at a loss for a spot to a. catch a rideable wave, and b. avoid all of the many surfboards constantly torpedoing into the air. So more about last night... About 2.7metres at Rottnest. Wind was howling S/SW, but luckily we're protected from that. The waves were a nice size and I was able to paddle onto the bigger ones, which is a first for when there's actually been anything of note there. I probably caught 6-8 waves and had a couple of really nice lefthanders. I'm getting better at trimming, and making the drop - it no longer scares the shit out of me. (Of course the shape of the wave goes a long way to allaying my fears.) I do need to work on some subtlety on my backhand though. Only had 2 that I rode right, mostly i was avoiding the crowd. The second one was definitely better than the first where i sunk the nose at the end of the ride, but I'm looking forward to getting a bit more control on that side.

Big peaks would form out the back but would flatten out by the time they got to us, leaving a number of puzzled surfers.

Didn't nosedive on any waves which was great and only fell off the back of one or two that I caught. Made the drop on what felt like a big one for me and could feel that only the tail of the board was in the water, the nose was out. Swinging from my tail like a surf monkey!! Feels good!

James grabbed the camera out to try and get a few shots of me after I'd caught two really nice waves, but then a lull set in and nothing powerful came through whilst he had the camera out. Nice of him, though, as I always bring the camera and end up with a zillion shots of him and Richard and none of me! The most recent photo I have of myself where I look like I'm riding a wave is from March 08... Would love to see what I look like now.

Not a massive fan of the Adrenalin, faded brown wettie, but my good one is TOO WARM. Leanne in the middle ground in a rashie and boardies. Maybe I should toughen up. :)

Pretty quiet between sets.

Yesterday was also the first day with my board back. I was a little worried that after surfing a softboard for 3 weeks that I'd get all freaked on the hardboard. As it turned out, it felt great and I didn't really give it another thought!

Hopefully the next photos I post will be of me on some waves.

We're off to Queensland in less than a month and we're both gagging for some long, rolling, east coast waves!