Safetosea

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.