I was a bad boy today.

Needed to get out of town and have a surf after a week chained to a monitor.. I hate it sometimes.

Anyway I had a spot in mind with the wind the way it was and a swell that was big enough this place is one of the few that can manage a near devil breeze and seem vaguely offshore, what with the rather high cliffs and the odd little microclimate they bring.

Rock up to the carpark expecting a few cars and it is... empty.

So I walk into the lookout and it's sure big enough, the wind is a bit dodgy but not that bad so the mind game is going.. this is not a good idea Mick but yeah you're going to have a crack anyway and boy if you get into strife you won't be getting any help at all.

Whatever...

Gathering up the board, wetty and towel, I marched the k or so in and was just entering the little hole in the wall track to the cliff top when whoops, er... sorry...er, I'm going to have to walk past you as I stumble over a young couple being very positionally inventive with a bouncy horizontal tree branch and no pants..if you get what I mean.

Keeping my eyes on the road I got to the cliff top, slipped and scrambled down the couple hundred feet via rope and very dodgy track... after 40 years of climbing this thing it only gets worse...

Anyway, upshot was I had two lefts to choose from, both in the 4-6ft range, one slabby, one almost sloppy, and given the dodgy nature of my solo mission I opted for the sloppy.

I do usually surf the other when I go here but  a stunned mullet does not climb cliffs well so soft option for the old fella.

Good thing too as there was the odd rather big bomb set that wouldve made the slabby wave ugly.

Anyway, got a few, was careful, didn't stay too long and managed to make it back up without a coronary.

And my team won the footy.

Pics: The two lefts, and the rope on the way up.

Checking my email yesterday, and blow me down if another Ed turns up and asks me if this is me. 

Attached was a shot from another angle of that wave from a few weeks back, and he had a sequence. I have to admit to being a little stoked as there was a shot in there of the wave as it started to throw and I started to worry about making it. 

Actually, I wasn't that worried as I barely remember a thing from the ride. Just a take off, a rush for a bit and then cruising through the inside thinking .. 'well that was a surprise!"

Thanks Ed. It's nice to have little gems like that arrive. 

For some reason I feel a little embarrassed about that last post. It was a lucky shot. Mind you I was stoked, so perhaps it's not so bad.

Yesterday a fun little surf at a wedgy peak I like to go to, that is often inhabited by a tight pack of regulars who play the block the old guy game. For the first 45 minutes I could not get a look in, as at every paddle attempt someone would paddle in front, or fake paddle inside just as I was about to go.

Made me nervy and hesitant as if I need hesitant at my age.

But I persisted, got a couple then the crowd thinned and thinned, right down to two as the tide got to rock popping out of the water low and just a bit dodgy.

It paid off, I had a few really nice waves and quite a few floggings as I ain't that flash at under the lip bubble take offs. Sometimes I make 'em. Sometimes I do somersaults.

The young fella I ended up surfing with was born and raised here, lives over the dunes at the back and it showed. Pulling into ridiculous backdoors on the sets (not shown) he had a Go Pro on his wrist that would have had a few moments for posterity. He got some floggings too, but under far more glorious circumstances that mine. I value that small lump of grey jelly enough to not try the foot of water behind the peak throw the board under the feet Hail Mary take offs he was occasionally pulling off.

Salut mate.

It was fun to chat.

Pics. Just before I paddled out, and a couple of ladies who parked on the seat to have a chat.

A  little while back now this wonderful coast was blessed a cracker swell, one of the best in years, massive period and pretty solid.

A glorious day in a wild and woolly way, and, as luck would have it, the last in a long window where photographer Ed Sloane could get a snap of me on a wave where I didn't look a complete fattened goose.

The snaps were for an article on me and Musica Surfica for Spanish surf mag 3sesenta. Felipe Verger, the editor and all around polymath has been a bloggy pal for ages, his nom de blog being Niega. Being in town for Bells, we had a coffee, a  chat....and shared some pizza.

Anyway, Ed got the shots, though he was standing up and hooting as I hit the bottom turn, ( I think in surprise that I made the drop) as I got lucky on a good one at a spot south of Bells.

Now that the magazine is out I can show off.... Here they are and a head shot Ed took, to let everyone know what old and crusty looks like.

Apologies for the type size again, and the weird indent at top... blogger playing with my brain.

Things have been decidedly dodgy on the surf front recently, so with a rising workload I took the opportunity to do some photography for a design job I'm doing.

The subject of the work is a company owned by a born and raised boy from our Mornington Peninsula, a wave haven sometimes called the Hoax Coast but in truth home to some absolute gems. A unique and beautiful environmental mix, the landscape of the place seemed a good balance to the rather dry financial subject matter.

Hunting inland and also just more intimately exploring bits I've normally run through in a wave induced fever, it was very therapeutic to just be, and explore a little. Working with the Canon G9, a camera a couple of steps above happy snapper without being remotely high end, and desaturating the images to suit the style I'm chasing... well, I had some fun.

If you are a local you might just spot some pathways to perfection, or recognize something you may have glanced if you looked sideways instead of sprinting.

PS: Blogger is behaving oddly so please excuse the tiny type...

 

 

 

Film is becoming a rare beast these days, so when Tim Ryan contacted me (God know why) to display his wares, I was intrigued.

This little piece gives gentle drama to the modern process of surfboard creation. Man and machine, perhaps a little at odds with the old school, but definitely serving to preserve aching joints from RSI while still allowing enough room for insight and the happy accident.

I've been around modern shaping bays enough now to know pre-shapes can still turn up 'all cocked up' and the opportunities to save a blank and discover an unexpected magic board still exist, thank goodness.

So sit back and relax into Sanded. Not a wave in sight but if you are a surfer, as you watch a board being shaped, however the method, waves start being ridden inside the coconut.