Wednesday, July 20, 2011

The bank in front of the inlet,...........

..............that has been created by the opening of the bar provided me with some of the best quality waves that I have ever experienced here. These images were taken this morning and the wave is not quite as clean but still providing the nearly 20 punters with some very pleasing rides and barrels to the right today. When I surfed it on Monday using the MT5 it was very quick, a bit busier, and though I managed to get through on a couple, I was probably lacking a little mat. Yesterday it was still producing a perfect A frame with the left particularly tasty and because it looked a little small I chose to take out the Roundtail Tracker. Initially, there were just three of us out there, myself, a bodyboarder and a guy on a short board and I got a couple nice ones but oddly it wasn't until a few more arrived that it really started to turn on. I was cleaning up on the mat taking the sets as they came through that the stand up riders were finding so hard to stay with the wave and mostly getting caught behind the peak. On the Roundtail, I was able to position myself perfectly to maintain a high line take off that set me up beautifully for the rest of the wave, stalling to try to slot in to the barrel, driving hard to stay on the face, releasing to get through a section and kicking hard to catch a reform. Oh man, did I get some great rides with plenty of the punters gawking at the speed I was achieving and I even got the thumbs up from one short boarder caught inside yet again. On the way back out he complained that he just could not get on to them and I spent a bit of time explaining to him why the mat was doing the job so well. He was mightily impressed with the speed and how much fun I was obviously deriving from each of the waves. It is not often that we get to experience this type of fast rifling barrelling wave here so it has been a pleasure and a rewarding learning experience to explore a surf mats potential on it. This final of course apart from an altercation with a visitor on a longboard who had obviously never seen a mat in action and was completely taken by surprise at the speed as I arrived on top of his head because he was paddling wide rather than taking the wave on the head on the way back out. I get really pissed off when the tourists visit, don't respect the line up and it's inhabitants, often bringing their aggressive over populated surf break attitude to our generally amicable and less populated breaks. So I gave him a little of what he might be used to and he actually had the gall to threaten me resulting in my grabbing his board and giving it a good shove and letting him know just who might suffer more and boy did he back off from the aggro mat rider with blazing eyes and a snarl on his dial. I so enjoyed seeing his face as I and the Roundtail continued to score perfect rides whilst he floundered around on his ridiculous choice of wavecraft considering the conditions. I think maybe there will be a little more respect next time he sees someone out on a mat. Got to respect the locals and don't, just don't ever fail to take seriously the old guy on the surf mat!





1 comment: