The Injidup Surf Shack

Another nice weekend away on a windy, stormy weekend back in November. No surf for us, but we did have a very relaxing getaway and a spectacular view of the storm blowing across the bay.

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.

Dunsborough Escape

El Salvador CA

This shot was meant to have James skating along behind me, but clearly I needed to have used the fisheye, not at 35mm.

cross country

Margaret River Drug Aware Pro

A quick trip down south for some waves and to take in the spectacle of an international surf comp.

We had to park on a golf course and catch a bus out to the surf break...

Waves had been 8-10 foot on the Friday, but we arrived to a rapidly dimishing swell. Uber long waits between sets and competitors were struggling to get two scoring waves in their heat. Lots of heats were extended to 40 minutes. The groms had the best day of it, surfing Southsides while the pros waited on a flat Main Break.

The crew

The women's finals finished after the mens and I was pretty spun out to see 90% of spectators leave after the men's presentations finished. They took place whilst the women's semi was still running, I might add. Guess there still isn't as much of a following of women's surfing...

We stopped in at Gracetown on the way back to our little chalet. The swell had dropped even more. Still looked fun, but we didn't have boards with us and a 60min round trip to get them would have left us with 40mins of light. We could surf on Sunday.

The Search

After a mega meal of pizza at the Malt Market, and a round of shots from a friend of a friend who insisted, we hit the hay. We awoke on Sunday morning to the sounds of 25 knot onshore winds and the swell read: <1 metre. Unheard of. So no waves for us. We perked ourselves up with pancakes and coffee before hitting the road.  

Dunsborough and Windmills

Spent a long weekend down in Dunsborough for a friend's 30th recently. I didn't think that Yallingup Bay ever got flat, but on the last day there, it was.

Got two surfs in amongst all the eating and ping pong.
A shortish session out at a tiny Yallingup mainbreak. Pretty terrible conditions. Super strong easterlies and hardly any swell, so you had to wait on the shelf of reef (that I could touch whilst sitting on my board...) to get enough steepness to catch the fat wave. Then a few random set waves would come and break so. far. out.

Got out to Windmills too. Finally found the place. Thought it was a 4WD track, then, now that we have a 4WD, found out that it's fine for all cars... So anyway the swell was super small, but there was still plenty of size coming through here.  Great fun and just so beautiful! Can't wait to check out some more spots off the beaten track from here.

Huzzas

We hadn't been out here before and it was big and crowded. After umming and erring for an inordinate amount of time, I decided I'd go in with Jo and James took photos. We recently got a new lens and this was a good opportunity to try out the Sigma 120-400mm!

Although it was daunting to look at, where we went out was super fat, ridiculous to get on and I only caught one wave.

Wave of the day was definitely Jo's mega right!