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The first Tuesday in November, in Victoria, is a public holiday. For a horse race.
The Melbourne Cup.
All of Australia stops to watch the $5,000,000 race, it seems, and it is a very good way to do your money. Every year we have a bet, though this year I couldn't have given a hoot, as we've never won a cent and the favourites rarely get up. So I found out about the win on the news.
Instead, I went for a splash and had a nap late in the afternoon. Though there was swell, it was blowing a gale, and once out the back I could barely see on takeoff. Couple that with old man legs, which afflicted me for some godforsaken reason, and my first three waves were laughable. Finally kicking into gear a few half decent rides were managed, but a fishy board would have been more the go as the waves were flat and pretty uninspiring. Around the corner at Winki it looked more interesting, but only... looked. Sections dropping down forced very short rides and most likely shorter tempers.
So a windblown couple of hours of exercise was the order of the day.
The shots are crowded Winkl under cloud, and a chap I snapped about to paddle out with a decidedly unusual quad set up. I didn't see him on a wave so can't comment on the performance. And Joe, with Sue, pre-Halloween party.
We don't even celebrate it in Oz, but any excuse for a party.
Oh .. and one more thing. I've been doing the odd bit of writing for Drift, and also for Phoresia. The Phoresia article, on Musica Surfica participant Sage Joske, is not yet up but should be by the end of the day (Dave?) It's worth a read as Sage is a very engaging and interesting guy. As for Drift, there is also a Joske-esque tilt to the latest contribution, as I've detailed the lovely agave board made by his father Paul from a couple of posts back.
After the fun of last Monday with Richard Tognetti, I repeated the exercise on Wednesday, again with Richard as he had the rare pleasure of time off in his all too familiar stupid schedule.
The waves were the same as pictured below, only better. Three to five feet, six or seven guys out, three at one stage, consistent and light offshore to glassy. We had a ball, and swapped boards a bit as Rich was anxious to try my new Maurice Cole, just to see. He loved it and has ordered two, one finned, one finless.
For a while there, though, while riding my old board with new board legs, I managed one of the best off the tops I've done in years, so much so a young guy copping the brunt of the spray hooted me. At least I think it was a hoot.
Perhaps he was just laughing.
What a cracker of a surf though. So good in fact that I gave all thought of surfing over the weekend the flick, and devoted time to errant sons, fatherhood and a little bit of work.
Guilt was the other reason though. As soon as I surf when I think I should be working it hits me big time. Even when there's no work. Of course I'd rather be gazing at a screen than basking in the refreshing sprinkle of water drops floating on an offshore breeze.
Pics. Tom on his fixie.. what a strange business fixie riding is, and another "me" shot, via Steve Ryan and some colour experimentation, just to even things up.
Every so often a weekend comes along that is just, well, different.
Saturday morning, with a friends wedding imminent in the afternoon, I headed off to get some exercise, the non surfing exercise in my life being a visit to the gym where I flog my heart out on a rowing machine for 20 minutes, try to die, then quickly whip across to an exercise bike where I repeat the process so that my combined cardio time adds up to 40 minutes, the gym is awash, then I do some light surf related weights.
Boring as batshit, but I persist.
So this day I spot my friend Dave as I walk towards the torture chamber.
Now Dave is nudging 70, fit as a bull, veteran of more marathons than Phiddipides and the possessor of very gimpy knees.
We always chat for a bit and he asked me to meet his wife.
I spent the next half hour listening to the most extraordinary tale of a childhood in a Japanese concentration camp on Sumatra, her father's adventures during this time, her recent news of contracting breast cancer, and her desire to tell the stories of their lives, just in case things go pear shaped.
Naturally this conversation put me off the exercise a bit, but I struggled through it, headed home and then off to the wedding.
There Sue swanned about saying "Champagne, champagne for everyone!!!" to no one in particular, with me hoping like hell she didn't appropriate most of it for herself as give that girl a party and champers and watch out world. (and Mick)
The next day it was surfless but late in the day I had a visit from Sage Joske and his father, Paul.
The Joske's are on of our great surfing families, Paul a master craftsman and the boys, Sage and Heath, phenomenal surfers.
Both came to King Island for Musica, and I have become good friends with the family. They are lovely people, and the boards they had with them had me gobsmacked.
Paul has made an agave gun for a friend, and this board has to be seen to be believed. Astonishingly beautiful. I will be posting some making of shots later, but my snaps with Paul gingerly holding it give some indication of the craftsmanship. It deserves to go into a professional studio to be shot but I suspect the next time it is photographed it will be well waxed up and on a wave.
The other board is an experiment of Sage's. An alaia fish, this is a detail. He added the minute fins as an experiment and reports its performance as 'interesting'.
Yesterday, I had the day off 'work' (hahahahahahahaha), and took Richard Tognetti for a splash. A very funny morning, for as a classical violinist he makes a good impression of one of the loons from Jackass. We managed an enjoyable surf on a mildly crowded but punchy Island reef.
One thing I now know for sure.
Never put a picture of your twenty one year old self on your blog when that day was some (cough splutter) years ago.
Seems people get a fright.
A small new venture has opened up for me, in fact a couple, neither of them earners, but great fun. That wonderful online magazine out of the UK, Drift has asked me to contribute the odd bit of blather. Two articles into my contribution history, regular readers of these (yes, you two) pages will notice I am sort of revisiting things I've touched on before, being my travels in the Olden Days, and adventures with kids.
They say write about what you know, so the past is always good for me, and kids have my permanent attention anyway.
That other bastion of things that interest surfers with a brain, Phoresia, has also been in touch, having asked me to do an article on Musica Surfica stalwart and cover star, Sage Joske. I've sent Sage a raft of questions to ponder in his own time, but since he is busy shaping legions of beautiful boards, his words lie dormant at the end of a blunt pencil.
He's down in Vicco come Monday though so I keep my fingers crossed he is the bearer of some crumpled paper, hopefully well marked.
Back to Phoresia, and I must say congratulations in a public forum to dear 'old' Ras, Rick Salcedo over on the KuYah blog.
I met Ras and his co-Phoresian Dave in New York last year, they are great guys and now Ras is the proud father of Moe Kingston. All good with Mum and Moe so I think there might be a rainbow over Halifax this week.
Happy days.
The pics today are my page at Drift, the shot used the partner of the Phoresia masthead. I had to use it as it is just a dream shot. .... And new Dad with young Moe, looking pretty sleepy while dad tickles him with his beard.
What news do you report when there's no news to report?
Well, actually, there have been some developments, none reportable yet, and none of them, unfortunately, in my bank account.
Buy Musica Surfica!!
The surf had been crapparoony (I assume there are two p's, and the L is silent as in river) so a very abbreviated splash with Richie on Sunday saw minute and very busy Rincon Bells.
A few waves were caught by me, none with much panache, though I did have a nice chat with an English marine biologist out surfing a Fourth Gear Flyer mat, which is an unusual sight in these here parts. Very nice chap but he did not have a clue about the drop in rule. Every bloody wave in front of someone. Still, not to worry. It was not worth getting at all bothered by.
My youngest, Satan..er I mean Tom, has found himself in more hot water. This time at school with a major indiscretion involving gun running or some such.
I do exaggerate, of course, but another hoop to jump through for us, and him, as we lurch through the teens.
So yesterday we went for a bike ride after dinner, along the bay and up to a hill overlooking the sea. With Melbourne in the distance, I snapped a pic of the lad with my iPhone, techno head that I am, and later applied a filter via CameraBag (neato software that gives Helga and Lomo camera style results, great fun for happy accidents...) Anyway, below is Tommy and his new bike.
On looking at it I saw something familiar. I dived into the archive and found a 1975 shot of me at art school, 21 years old, a year before I had my face rearranged in a car smash that meant I never quite had my nose or right eye pointing in the quite same directions again. Tom will always be a tad lighter than old fatboy, but we do look alike.
Lovely boy for a devil.
The other shot is the drivel of Bells, filtered to look pretty.
And speaking of pretty, what do you reckon about the first generation Beachcomber Bill thongs, and the genuine Australian Army surplus pants cut down to shorts, preempting cargo's by thirty years? I can't remember what brand the T-shirt was but it did have a pocket. Also note the St Bede's College school bag that I continued to use for several years after I left.
There are days and there are days.
A few weeks back the swell in this rather eventful year hit overdrive, with Bells and it's environs occupying an intense purple patch on the swell maps. Four metres at twenty to twenty two seconds saw close to if not twenty foot wave faces.
Only surfing could mix it's measuring systems so perfectly.
Nearby... or should I say somewhere else in Victoria, those who cared knew it was going mad, with waves nearly twice as big. Since we know that wave power is proportional to the wave period and to the square of the wave height, this meant it was packing a mighty punch.
Particularly in the morning. While the tide was low and the wind offshore, the sun not yet hidden by approaching clouds, this wave was a magnificent thing, and luckily someone was there to capture it.
Who, I'm not saying, as a protective bunch of locals have declared it sacred, not to be photographed, though those up to it are free to ride it.
The fact that it has had feature spreads in multiple magazines over the years , is in every surf guide known to man, and is located on a major tourist route seems to mean nothing. It is no real secret, but in deference I'll not name it.
It is one of the more self editing waves in Australia, if not the world, by dint of (in)consistency, isolation, relative cold, and the fact that to get in you jump off a 15 foot cliff into fuck all water. It's a quarter of a mile paddle from there to the take off. To get out of the water, broken board or not, you have a paddle of a mile along a hundred foot cliff line, then a dash across a black channel criss-crossed by the odd chum smeared fishing boat that's been working a coast that could be referred to as the highway one of Australia's great white shark population.
If you fuck up you rescue your self. End of story.
The intimidation factor alone would be sufficient for most if the wave height wasn't enough.
I've never seen it really crowded.. maybe eight or ten in the water at a maximum, and when it get's to tow in size, just a few teams work it, if any.
So why am I sticking up a shot?
Because it is beautiful, and at times something needs to be honoured for what it is, regardless of politics.
The surfer is Ross Clark-Jones, on a four hundred yard run, fleeing a freight train. Maurice Cole made the board.
