Winter swell is on its way!

My little man is seven weeks old and I enjoyed a fantastic surf today, thanks to his grandma minding him.

Slowly getting my surfing fitness back. All that baby holding is great for muscles, but not so useful for that burst paddling. My first time back in the water was when Rowan was three weeks old. I didn't catch anything, wrong board on top of everything else, but it is now great to know that I haven't forgotten everything. The turns and balance are still right there. Pop ups just happen and the fitness will come. I'd love to be doing yoga again, but turns out you don't have oodles of spare time with a newborn. Need to find a mums and bubs yoga. I could try do some at home but it just doesn't end up being a priority in the five minutes you have to yourself to race around and try to do 20 things. 

Winter wonderland - Leighton

So since four weeks ago i have actually caught some waves. I've been out at Cove a few times, Isos and close out Scarborough. 

Today we actually had enough swell for decent waves all along Cott. Even saw a rogue one break at the artificial reef on the way there. At Isos, there were a few peaks to spread out the crowd. 

My first wave had some nice wall to it - enough to fit in some roller-coasting - and i rode it all the way to shore! Number 2 was a sneaky set wave that broke south of the usual peak. I was so stoked as i normally misjudge the wave and paddle too far out, then miss it. Or get cleaned up. I was the only one even close and i figured i had to go for it even though it looked a little late. I caught it and it was epic! Decent drop, a big bottom turn - hand in the wall, streaking along the face, cut back, another bt, and a fantastic dismount when the wave closed out onto the approaching backwash haha. Best wave I've ad in Perth for a year at least. I love random lefts at Isos!

Two weeks ago at tiny Cottesloe with my 9'2

Third wave was another sneaky left. Not as big, but bloody fun. Oh waves with walls: It's all a girl wants. 

Maldives - Day 5

Where am I: North Male Atolls
Who am I with: Anna, who has joined the boat from another one, a pod of spinner dolphins and a fruit bat.

Anna and a lovely bunch of bananas

What we ate: French toast for breakfast!! Fish and chips for dinner and banana crepes for dessert. A good day!

What we did: Three surfs today! Told Tamara about the baby.

Funny Moments: Singing in the line up. Shakin' our tushie on the dinghy.

Surf Session #6
Spot: Jailbreaks
Conditions: smaller
I surfed my: 5'6
Best wave: I only caught one and fell off.
As it was smaller I thought that sitting on the inside a bit might have been a good idea to catch some of the smaller ones. Unfortunately, the bigger ones caught me instead. Got caught on the inside twice and got a bit panicky the second time thinking that I was also being pushed across to the peak as well as inside onto the reef.

They really pound you here. Suck you back when you dive under. Got a bit emotional, but I'm totally fine. Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. Glad we're moving onto ninjas, which is meant to be much gentler. The size of the waves has been fine, but the sets are just massive. Might just play it really safe and sit out on the elbow at the next place. We were talking about how we were sitting out on the little finger yesterday. So I joined Leeann and Anna out there before heading in.

Magic Moments: Three boats full of girls all wound up here, so we had about 16 girls in the lineup. One whole boat was from Dunsborough. It was great seeing other people get stoked on this wave.

Out on the fingernail = next to the boat

We collected Tamara off the reef on the way back to the boat as her leggie had snapped!

Surf Session #7

Spot: Ninjas

Conditions: Smallish and glassy.

I surfed my: longboard

This was such a great surf. Small enough that there wasn't the fear factor but the sets still felt decent. Only about two bigger waves in a set, which was more manageable.

Best wave: one of my first waves was so long! Nice and wall-y. I tried to tuck and get past this section. I wound up in line with where the Haira was anchored in the channel! So then I ended up standing around the side of the island, on the reef 'having a cuppa' for a few waves, before a lull to head back out. Took the GoPro out today. Caught loads of waves!! Tamara and I were in our element on the longboards. Leeann had some fun ones and felt much more in her comfort zone here.
Much more fun when you're trying to catch the set waves instead of the ones in between!

Magic Moments: 2 turtles, 2 pods of dolphins and turquoise fish.



Surf Session #8
Spot: Ninjas
Conditions: afternoon. Higher tide than the lunch surf. Fatter.
I surfed my: longboard

We had dolphins out with us for this one! It was crowded initially with quite a few learners out with two guides. I've been trying to flick off the back of the waves before they start to close out but haven't been having much luck. One of the guides saw me and told me I needed to be right on the tail to get this done. We shared a great moment of stoke when I managed to nail this on my next wave. There was fist pumping.

The Moment - Sharing the stoke

We all whooped and cheered for a lady who he was coaching. She caught this bomb and rode it to the bottom on her guts. Innocence is bliss. I wish I had that much fearlessness!

We then had the place to ourselves. So awesome to have sessions where you lose count of your waves. Got a few bombs too! Leeann was on fire this session and I was lucky enough to see two or three of her waves from the front where she was getting more angle and more speed. Two were really terrific, long waves, so she was absolutely stoked.

After this morning I was saying that some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. It was a bit of both today, but I'm pretty sure I got roast bear this afternoon!

Mikala shot photos from the boat during our afternoon session

Waiting for waves

All photos are copyright Hannah Katarski except those reproduced with the permission of Mikala Wilbow Photography. 

Christmas in Manly

We shared a flat with my parents for 4 days over Christmas and I just loved Manly. If I had to live in Sydney, it would be there. But if had to live on the east coast, it probably wouldn’t be Sydney…

I loved how everything was focussed around the beach. There was such a great vibe. The streets are laid out so nicely and then the harbour and ferries are parallel to the beach, so you’re on this weird little peninsula. The lay of the land is very different from Perth. So much rock. Cliffs and juttings and outcrops and heads. So of course that makes for some pretty cool surf spots. In Perth you can pretty much walk in a straight line along the beach from one end of the metro area to the other. And there aren’t really cliffs… just sand.

There’s a boardwalk from Manly all the way around to Cabbage Tree Park and Shelley Beach. The waves sometimes break across it and you walk past the in-ocean swimming pool, cafes, diving lessons, a calm swimming beach, two surf breaks, and people paddling their surfboards between one spot and the next. There is a natural viewing/amphitheatre where you can watch the surfers in line with where they take off. Then, 90 degrees to your right, there’s another wave, breaking at a totally different angle!

In typical fashion we brought swell with us and the beaches were actually closed for two of the three and half days that we were there. There was a cyclone off the north east coast and the waves got a bit ugly with messy winds.

Christmas day, our first morning there, was perfect, but thinking we had all the time in the world, we had coffees and took in the sights. By lunchtime, when we decided to go hire a board, the wind had come howling in (for the first time in a week) and it was all down hill from there!

Boxing Day we went out on the Harbour and watched the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race from a boat.

I promised myself that I would go out for a surf before we left. Sure enough, the morning that we had to check out was a lot more orderly and smaller. Of course, the board hire places open office hours and we needed to be out by 10am. So I took out my Dad’s kneeboard! He takes his board with him as people don’t rent kneeboards! This was a great experience. It’s 6’2 and has a very spooned (kneeboard, ugh) shape. It goes really nicely as a stand up board – apart from having to stand across knee dibits. Plus it duck dives well – and I sure was doing a lot of that. More than catching waves.

The water was SO clear out there and I got such a kick out of sitting out there (and from being able to see our balcony from the line up). It was also pretty amazing to see the stereotyped Australian summer surfing culture. Perth is so flat in summer with the protection from the outer reef. But Sydney needs hardly any swell to have waves. Imagine that! Surfing decent waves regularly in summer! Warm water, blue skies, holidays… The Perth surfing culture is having your pick of the car parks, putting on a wetsuit, and paddling out at a beach that is empty apart from the surfers. Lucky for us, Perth is generally pretty spectacular in winter; blue skies, offshore winds, no crowds… and the water and air aren’t really that cold…

I was proud of my duck dives. They’re coming along now. The Manly experience has certainly helped me to concrete my technique and to tweak my timing. Friends said they’ve found my mini-simmons pretty hard to duck dive, but to me, it is actually doable which makes it awesome! It’s not a potato chip thin shortboard, but I’ve been riding a minimal for 4 years. It’s all relative. So the fact that I can actually sink the nose and reach the tail simultaneously means it’s totally workable. I’m still a bit hesitant when I get a critical duck dive where the wave is about to unload on me, but I’m feeling pretty confident with unbroken waves and walls of foam.

Summer Reprieve

So we moved recently. We've been in our new house for three months and they've been big ones. We're loving it - so glad we moved. We're slowly making it our own and finding homes for everything.

James waxing up his new board ready to surf

We've already made ourselves a boardrack!

We've had a lot of wind and heat and not many waves this Summer. We went to Manly, Sydney for Christmas, but more about that later...
James and I got a surf down at Hussas late arvo, after a wild search through Dunsborough and Yallingup. I learn about conditions and places every time we head down there. It's pretty confusing when you don't see places regularly. We looked at Yallingup, went to Smiths... We wound up at Windmills and it was so big it was dumping overhead onto the rocky, granite shore. After that, I'd decided just to head back to Yallingup and go out there - by which time, the wind came howling in.

So Hussas was good. It looked big but was actually too fat to catch. We both caught a wave and felt pretty good, I think, about being out somewhere unfamiliar. The next day was another lesson wave hunting. We went here:

Unridden perfection

- A place suggested by my Uncle, who is a local. His call was good on Hussas the day before and when we turned up at Moses Rock it looked soooooo nice. I was going to be going out on my own and got to the point of suiting up and standing on the stairs... before I chickened out and decided I didn't like it so much with the wind shift... and were those set waves getting bigger..? So, second guessing myself, I decided to go check out Hussas again. Upon arrival though, we found that it was flat without the wind pushing swell in, and the conditions had obviously dropped, unlike what was forecast. So we missed the window.

I second guessed myself and missed out. It's hard to be brave sometimes. And it's always easier when you go out with someone who knows the lay of the land to tell you how it all works, where to get in, get out, watch the rocks, where to sit...

And I think it is a definite balance between *being safe and knowing your limits* and *having confidence in yourself and judging the conditions with a clear mind*. I think I should have gone out at Moses Rock. It has become a monkey on my back and I hope I'll be able to give is a go on one of my next trips south.

In the meantime, I'm trying to remind myself of what I'm capable of. To stop over analysing waves and just get out there. I definitely need to find some bigger balls.

We've just started surfing Tom's in the last few weeks. You could say that we've discovered it. For ourselves, that is. It's no secret - loads of people surf there, but we never have. I assumed it didn't break in Summer and Scarborough was always closer. When Cott breaks, we go there. So it's been a real treat to realise there is a reef break in Perth that breaks on a small swell! We've had 2 out of 3 good surfs there and are starting to get it sussed. Between Tom's and Wedge, I've actually had quite a few surfs over the last fortnight. It feels good.

Sunny Sunday

Today was wonderful. We're back to our usual Winter weather for a few days; blue skies and 20 degrees.
Finally found some surf somewhere with shape. Leighton was glassy with some nice a-frame peaks. Managed a roundhouse style cutback on my mal which made my day. Then James met me at the beach with a coffee and we went for a skate on the super smooth, new hot mix paths.
The afternoon has been spent sitting in the sunshine, drinking tea and binding a new 'colour study' sketch book.

Roast for dinner. Perfect end to any weekend.

bigger is better...

After spending time up in Gnaraloo I had the epiphany that shortboarding isn’t really for me. It is something I’ve been aiming towards, but the reality is that starting to surf at 25 doesn’t really lend itself to vertical reos and insane cutbacks. You need to have been doing it since you were a little tacker. Plus we rarely have good quality shortboarding waves, so there’s just not the opportunity to develop my shortboarding skills. Perhaps if I was able to surf the board 2 or three times a week I might be in with a chance. These two things combined make the journey to decent shortboarding almost impossible. The icing on the cake is that I’m not actually that attracted to it. I like the glide. Smooth, planing rides that move in synchronicity with the wave. Not the hack and slash, bunny-hop you so often see on short boards.

A few things have helped this epiphany to emerge. For instance, I saw this:

She was taking off right on the peak and styling all the way. THAT is what I want to be doing. High lines and long, 70s style cutbacks.

In the past, the turtle roll vs duck-dive has been the other incentive for working towards shortboarding. But this chick just turtled under the biggest waves, no problem. Ok. Sometimes it just takes seeing it to believe you can do it. I was also watching the Roxy Longboard Pro in Biarritz. When the pros were stuck on the inside they did all the things I do. No secrets. That’s just how it is when you LB. You can't fight it.

So I was stoked to get on my longboard and get styling. It finally occurred to me that if I was going to be stuck on the inside at Tombstones diving under 6 set waves, it really didn’t matter whether the board attached to my leg was 7 foot or 9 foot. So given that there are a lot more styling options on the 9 footer, I should start taking that out more often.

I was super stoked seeing the cheater 5s, cutbacks and the floaters that the Roxy Pro girls were pulling on their longboards. So I’ve got some concrete things to work towards.

I haven’t dismissed shortboards altogether, but the shortboard shape. In fact, I discovered the mini simmons somewhere on Flickr or someone’s blog and started doing some research. I have fallen in love. The glide of a mal in a mini-retro package! As part of the research for how short I could go, I had a paddle and caught a wave on my Dad’s 6’2 kneeboard last weekend. That was a slightly weird experience. Weirder still was seeing dad kneeboarding on a 9’ mal.

We were talking about the idea of having a crack at making one, but then that led to the idea of just letting someone shape one that really works…
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is some serious eye candy.
After talking to a number of shapers, they all suggested that the mini simmons can go short. Super short. They have a huge amount of volume and the shovel nose that makes them easy to paddle even at 5’6. Yes. 5’6. I put the order in on Monday. They are shaped to be fast, to plane and do really well in smaller, sectioning waves. I’m sure there will be a period of adjustment and it will remain to be seen whether I can duck dive it, but I’ll have my fingers crossed.

It now seems like such a sensible alternative to the shortboard, complete with glide and Hang 5 stokeability.

If you've managed to read this far, well, well done. And thanks. :]

Toes on the Noes

I was re-watching the ROXY short surf film 'Shimmer' the other day. The interviews are a bit naff, but I like girls surfing and Roxy is always so 'feel good'. Graceful and pretty. Kula Barbieto is a featured longboarder and I saw her pop up, turn her board and then cross-setp to the nose in a sort of graceful, two-step gallop. It made so much sense! I keep trying to take my time getting to the nose and then fall off because I've missed the opportunity while I worry about keeping the board in trim.

My Uncle had told me that you need to have your board in the top third of the wave and to get down the front straight away.

So on Wednesday I gave it a go. Waves were tiny, but there were a couple of people hanging five, so it reminded me to give it a go. I managed to pull off two Hang 5s on separate waves! All without falling off afterwards.
Stoked.

Gnaraloo 2010 - unknown surfer

After work today I'm off to pick up my Dad's 1969 Cordingley Stringerless 9'4. It hasn't been used since I took it out after I first started surfing, about 3 years ago. Now that I know what I'm doing - sorta - I'm keen to have another go. Plus it weighs so much that I'm thinking it will be a whole lot better for noseriding than my new, light 9'1. Apparently, though, it has a convex bottom.... we'll see how that works out.

Girls Gone Wild ~ Lancelin 2011

The trip this January was the best yet. Conditions a week out were generally looking pretty good and we were all excited. Then Tropical Cyclone Bodhi... (forgotten it's name already) reared its ugly head and it was looking like we'd be stuck inside waiting out the storm. It hit Friday night, waking up the light sleepers with lightning outside the window and heavy rain.

But the next morning dawned; sunny, hot and a little windy. We checked the back beach which looked uninspiring. It was decided, with much bravado about knowing the way, that we'd head up to Wedge.  At the very least we had 2 4WDs for security, if very little know-how. We got there relatively easily and ended up parking behind the dune. There were plenty of waves to be had just over the hill and there wasn't any beach to drive on anyway - the high tide from the cyclone.

What we found...

Paradise

The waves were a little fat this first day, but still super fun and we basically had the place to ourselves.

There was just enough time to get back to our rental and cook up a bbq storm before the real storm rolled in and the power went out. Wind, rain, lightning, plus thunder this time. A much needed trip to the bottle-o, via the beach to check the carnage. Onshore mess. By the time we got back home, the wind was conspicuous in its absence. A perhaps unwise decision to indulge in champagne slushies before two of us raced back down to the back beach for an arvo session.
No wind.
The empty car park quickly filled as we slip-slop-slapped, as though surfers everywhere had received the 'all-clear' signal.
We found a peak to ourselves and passed a happy hour surfing glassy waves under a glassy sky.

 

The power eventually came back on around 9pm. All the pubs were closed and nothing was open for dinner. Instead doughnuts and CCs were on the menu.

Sunday was windy. Kinda NW, which isn't good. We felt that we'd make a go of it anyway and head straight back to Wedge. Protected by a northern groyne it was super fun and less fat than the day before. Helped along by the fact that I'd taken out my 6'8 the day before, surfing my 7'6 this day was so much fun. Best surf I've had since Gnaraloo. Things were really clicking and I was getting some great turns and carving happening.

We're all chomping at the bit to get back up there. But do we wait for another cyclone?

Gnaraloo

I don't even know where to start. We had such a fantastic time. Sure we weren't without our dramas - the hired trailer suspension died on the way up resulting in the 12 hour drive taking an extra 5 before we were all at camp... but all in all, it was pretty nice! It was windy this year but all easterly. Sunny everyday which was a real treat after leaving Perth at 3am on the coldest night since 2006.

Our campsite was massive which allowed for my parents' Taj Mahal-of-a-tent, plus ours, plus the kombi. We were joined by a number of visitors around the campfire as the entire surfing population of Margaret River seemed to be there at the same time as us.The following day was our first day out at Tombstones - the mainbreak. About as small as it gets up there and so much fun. The following couple of days were bigger and we left it to Bill and Dad to surf.Dad kneeboarding

We managed to find some waves too...Hannah

Hannah
James on a bomb

We worked up the courage to go out at Fencelines one afternoon which proved to be a fun little wave. Very dependent on the tide but a shorter paddle and nice and fast. Courage was needed to get over the thought of ending up on the reef ledge at low tide.We had a couple of days by ourselves out at Tombies when dad and Bill went off to Turtles.

Suited up and ready to paddle out. The water is really warm and glassy, but the reef is nasty. On the first day out I put a sea urchin through my bootie and carved chunks out of my board on the coral coming in.Endless Summer

Loving the lefts.All lefts here... me bottom turning to head down the line.

James had a knack for finding ones like THESE!

Richard making the drop. Me about to be decapitated...

James and Dad went into Carnarvon to collect the trailer (complete with two new springs) towards the end of the week. Rich, Emma and I took this time to chill out and do some drawing!
We had a fantastic and unusually crowded day out on the water midweek. Waves were so fat that we were getting push-ons from Dad and Bill. But the Meiklejohn boys didn't stop at giving James, Rich and I a boost. I think everyone in the line up benefited. It was a great vibe, there were heaps of other women out and it was like a tea party out in the ocean.
We ate so well. Bill's meatballs, Dad's chicken casserole. Emma & Richard brought along the gourmet contingent with red Leicester cheese, honey and banana breads, roti... The highlight as always though was fresh caught fish and handcut chips.

After cooking for 9, the place got a whole lot quieter when James and Sarah left, shortly followed by Rich and Emma.We had some quiet days with less wind and even smaller swell. I took the 6'8 out at Fencelines and found that it went pretty well with the new skills I've picked riding my minimal.

Dad and I also shared some father daughter time out at Tombstones one afternoon. Whales breaching not so much further out. A whole four people in the water.The tranquility up there is unparalleled. No power, no phones, no fresh water. You feel pretty isolated. And we were, until the Friday before we were due to leave. It took me a while to realise where all the people had come from. School holidays. So our last 3 days were a little less tranquil and a little more circus-like. Having said that, there were plenty of waves to go around, still waves going unridden and the sun kept shining.

Still offshore

The idea that we'll shortly be getting on a plane and heading off for 8 weeks seemed alien. The thought of airports and traffic and people, a million miles away. Totally unreal. Reality?

The sunset and the stars and the sound of the waves...