It's Sunday, a day away from surfing to see the youngest off on an eight week camp, and a day to get into a few things I've procrastinated on.

So into the office for an hour, downloaded the shots from yesterday's waves, and a moment to get it into the blog.

As I've sometimes said, around Melbourne we have access to three coasts. Phillip Island, the Mornington Peninsula, and the West Coast. The Peninsula is sometimes called the Hoax Coast. Consisting of a long stretch of reefs and beaches facing fully into the brunt of any swell, it is usually half again as big as Bells on any given swell, and therefore often too big for anything there to handle. A few exceptional reefs can do it on their days, and when the banks are on beach break magic is there to be found.

But finding it is the key.

An endless array of tracks and dead ends has more semi secret spots in a relatively confined area than you could imagine, and local knowledge regarding tides, banks and what happens to a particular nook or cranny in a given condition means you can score or miss out by dint of one bay or street.

In a way I hate the place, but love it too, as it is the coast I grew up surfing and know it very well, so even now, when I don't go that often, at least I have an idea where to look.

Yesterday I checked this little spot. On arrival no one out so I rushed back, got into my gear and ran back down the track. Two guys already paddling out and we enjoyed a good hour and a half before it started to get very busy. Unusually I wasn't on a timetable, so I stayed out through the a couple of crowd cycles, and ended up having a great fun surf. Five and a half hours, a quiet chat with a few, dodging the odd protective local, and enjoying the sun.

The pics, the line up pre surf, and a snap just after I got out of the water.

I had a fun surf yesterday.

Maurice Cole had handed me a little 6ft Metro (Modern Retro)... wide and massively concaved... to try out when it was smaller.

Always a glutton for punishment I took it out in horrible Bells with the hope that as the tide dropped the swell that was forecast to arrive did. After a fashion indeed it turned up, so while Winkipop was entertaining a fair crew I joined a mixed band of geriatrics (me), in-betweeners (two or three other guys) and a grommit, out at Bells,, in the wind, sharing what occasionally crept through.

Bells became my own skatepark and this little board swooped and carved, so much fun, in waves near the top end of its range. I had a blast though naturally as I always do there was the odd embarrassing loss of face and coordination. Not enough to erase the inner glow though.

On leaving the water I naturally had to take my obligatory line up shot.

While leaning on the rail, snapping away in Dreamland, the very close proximity of the guy quietly standing next to me caught my attention and turning, I realised Derek Hynd had parked his wiry frame right next to me. He's a funny bugger that Derek, we ended up having a great chat, made me late getting home, but hopefully, if this swell hangs around I can sneak down and both catch a surf and see how much further his finless explorations have taken him.

Last year in big Bells he was epic, now working on floaters he tells me, his subtle art I suspect is rapidly growing artfully radical.

Changing the subject, and not, a few weeks back I was approached by Mary Mills, Surf Sista and one of the editors of Liquid Salt.

An interview no less. I must say I felt a bit of a hoax amidst the luminaries inhabiting the site, but they seemed to like what I had to say and the interview is now up.

As to the pics below, the emptyish Bells lineup, and Winki, with aftermath of the contest, awaiting deconstruction.

One of the worst surfing Easters for years had me hightailing it alone down to our deep south chasing... something.

An area that can be sublime has one spot that makes a mockery of many surfers, me more than most. Both on Saturday and Sunday a total of maybe 5 hours in the water realised perhaps one wave I'd give a tick to, the rest, a physical comedy that I couldn't laugh about as I was blasted hither and thither by crumbling lips, sections that showed promise only to disappear, bad timing, age and infirmity. The kids love this spot.. called The Point, somewhere it missed the point when the reef and location conspired to get it not-quite-right.

As a panacea, my photographer mate Rod and I decided to shoot the sunset and check potentials for waves as the swell abated and the hope of groomed banks beckoned. Some hope was out there amongst the turmoil, though a light onshore made it a little hard to read.

Shooting away as the light dimmed, me with my little snapper and Rod with his enviable kit, I decided to concentrate on the shooter as he went about his business.

Rod is a gun, and makes his living shooting the coast, knows its every mood, nook and cranny, in the water and out. With a nickname that I won't repeat, but one that alludes to the amount of people he represents in paddling power and wave count, he can be a formidable presence in the lineup, while his conversation as we wait for waves can be obtuse in the extreme. Sunday evening, sitting in a somewhat confused sea, he was discussing cosmic string theory.

God love ya Rodney.

Yesterday was frustration city as I had to hightail it back to town for work, only to discover halfway there that I wasn't needed. Doubling back I found a nook on the coast with a wedging rip bowl with no one out. Very thick, with 6-10ft faces ( it felt bigger and looks way smaller) while battling a ridiculously strong rip I managed a fun session all by myself on Easter Monday.

I can't complain.

Pics: Rod x 2, My shot of what he shot, and the said bowl, not a set, but indicating both wind and nature of the wave. It started out the back where the lines are, not this inside section. I was crowded out by chinese tourists as I tried to take the shot. It's about 300 metres away and with no one out hard to show the size.
The tree... a woolly old casuarina taken as I wandered past.

A mixed sort of day yesterday.

Tides and winds indicated a set of beaches east of home so that way I headed, with the thought nagging like an itch inside my head that there were other possibilities. Nevertheless we pressed on and after several dead ends and the tide working against us, Richie and I settled on a very fun left hand bank that delivered the goods for a couple of hours after we spent a couple of hours trying to find it.

The net result was tantalisingly good, and frustrating at the same time as there was that little... "if only we'd come here first".

Late afternoon I settled down to watch the Australian Grand Prix on the box, an odd sensation where we live as, while I watch it on the telly, I can hear it out the door. The track is less than a kilometre from home.

Add to that the fact that an F18 doing a fly by overhead just prior to start time and there is no way the event can be ignored. Great if you're a race fan but those with timid pets beware.

Come the evening and I went off to see Andrew Kidman sing and play live with his Brown Birds of Windy Hill, to his film compilation Last Hope.

It was great to finally meet him as he'd been a great moral support to me via the phone in the early days of Musica Surfica, a lovely guy, a generous one, and a man surprisingly self effacing. I had imagined someone much more comfortable talking to an audience, but whether he was tired or this was his natural way, it was just a quiet banter introducing songs, and a gentle end, at the end, to the show.

Afterwards we managed a chat, it being good for both of us to finally shake hands and say hello.

I have to say the guy has an absolutely brilliant voice and musicality. I'd love to see him climb to deserved heights and get some exposure beyond the world that knows him for his wonderful films.

Pics for the day... a couple of walks back from dead ends, shot one of a dad and his kids, the wetsuited lad frustrated by the lack of quality at the spot we'd just checked. I hope he eventually scored, at least as good as our pot of blue at the end of an imaginary rainbow.

After last weeks meltdown over My Blog Sucking, I realised the best thing I could ever do was let everyone know how I think.

I wasn't chasing compliments ( weeeeell..) but it did cement the point of all this in the first place. Connectedness in a real sense can happen, and the icing on this cake was I received a pair of comments from the culprit himself. The connection thing happened, and the anonymous critic on the other end became a human being with a sense of humour and a firm commitment to the opinion that my photos still suck.

I must by a new camera... when I can afford one.

Surf yesterday was a much anticipated 4-5ft at Bells, lovely waves on arrival but absolutely PACKED.. pre Bells Contest the car park is full, and the lineup's likewise. Fifty to sixty out at Bells and the same at Winki.. thankfully there was little in the way of overt aggravation out there, though it was hard to snag a decent wave.

My first was gifted me by Maurice Cole..."take it Mick I just got one".. a long Rincon run through the bowl that had me thinking I was in for a cracker of a session, but I lapsed back to trying to find a quiet space for a cup of tea and a chat. No luck, and a long hour and a half before my next decent wave.

A bomb came my way but I had to straighten off due to the bodies in my way.

Another, a bumpy one where the whole ride was punctuated by my swearing as I hit ridge after ridge with a front foot slightly off position . Bump "fuck" bump "fuck" bump "fuck" bump "fuck" . When I pulled off the end of the 50 odd metres I had to laugh and think how funny that would have looked to everyone else in the lineup. Naturally my place in the pecking order assumed that of a surfing chicken.

Pics, Bells through thebushes as I had no access to my normal piccie taking spot, and a scribble of my devil of a son Tommy in a quiet moment that I did on Saturday, as taken with the wonderful iPhone Hipstamatic app.

THIS BLOG SUCKS

Yesterday I had an epiphany of sorts.

In the bottom right hand corner of this page is a button to Shiny Stat, a hit counter that I check every couple of days, more out of habit than anything, just to see who's popped by.

One section in there tells me the referrers, sites that have a click through to me, the one place where specific addresses come up. Checking it yesterday I saw three references from a blog called Your Surf Blog Sucks.

Of course I clicked through and saw that indeed, my blog did suck. I wrote in Australian, which made it at times hard to understand. Lame photos. So so writing, and, indeed, I am an angry man who most likely will reply to said critique with some aggression or whatever.

Not so.

Though my first reaction was I was gutted, because this blog is a personal thing. On reflection, though, the angry guy at the other end has done me a favour.

I thought back to my motives for beginning it, and why I do it now.

The first post I ever did was as an attempt to connect with the family of a young Cali surfer who died on Nias around 6 years ago. Nothing came of that post, but it began a journey that has seen me connect personally with people around the world.

When I made Musica Surfica, and had the opportunity to travel, these connections became flesh and blood, people who would become real friends, and who I know, notwithstanding the geographical separation, would be people I'd happily share lineups, laughs and meals with for years to come.

Continuing the blog, and dipping in and out of many of that group at left, and others since discovered, keeps that connection going. I see Ras's face when I read Kuyah, Teddo at Six Foot and Perfect I've watched develop as an artist and shaper, and admired his grace when 5 minutes after meeting him, he put up with me retiring to the hotel bathroom and blowing out a retaining wall, such was the state of my travel raddled guts.

Surfsister, well I literally ran into her and dinged Novice Surfer's new fish.

In New York, Shipworm and Gribble became Mike, and Endless Bummer became Toddy.

A beautiful lady named Pineapple Luv interviewed me.

A surfing lawyer in England wrote a bestseller and sent me The Book.

And I had a surf with a one time Buddhist monk who wrote one too.

My Dear Old Dad reads it, and I love it that he does.

The blog became about connection.

We share our surfing world, and our world as fathers, mothers, lovers, friends.

The dig about the writing, well... perhaps I get lazy at times, and just belt it out. When I've become inspired I'll share a poem, or an insight. Whether the writing is good or not, that's up to the reader. I've tried to not be self conscious about it, I try to keep it simple. I'm not writing to show off.

This is me.

The photography. Sometimes the shots are a quick snap of a lineup. At other times, I'll make an effort. You can tell the difference. The one thing you will notice is that if you hunt through the months and years of this blog, and consider I am a one surf a week city surfer in a city with its nearest waves eighty minutes away, I am a very lucky man. We live in a wonderful part of the world.

That I hope to live closer soon is without doubt, but family and work demand me here now.

Today's pic then, is me, just turned 56, as taken by my son Joey. I'd turned around while cleaning the shed, he caught me unawares, and I do look serious.

Behind me on the wall are a couple of boards. Sandwiched in between two thrusters is a finless made for me by Derek Hynd. In the rear left is a sculpture I made that is dedicated in the most oblique way to my wife Sue. Next to that and out of sight is a portrait I'm trying to finish of Joey. Out of sight on the other side.. skateboard decks, too small wetsuits, fins and skim boards, detritus of growing boys.

A happy place, fronted by an apparently angry man.

Perhaps so. Dealing with a mid teen in full flight has got me by the nuts, and it has occasionally crept into my writing. It gets it off my chest, people write in and say, yep, I have one of them too, or yikes, mine are about to get there.

I made a surf movie and lost the house. Blame the GFC, or wonderful timing. Again, get it out, communicate. Don't go mad.

So cheers to Your Surf Blog Sucks. You've done me a favour. I'll try to pick up my game, and while my blog may suck, I love it just the same.

And I will continue to write in Australian. Oddly enough, I am one.

Damned if I didn't say no more surf reports, but dang if it wasn't fun yesterday.

A perfect little A frame, the left reeeeeeling off and some of the best small waves I've had since the last time I hit this little bay.

The shots are a couple I snapped prior to paddle out, and one of me snapped by Richie. He ran out of memory, missing the 360, the air and the giant hack, so you have to make do with a rather sedate cutty where I seem to be inspecting my toenails instead of regarding the section I intended to hit brutally.

Not.

I blame the straight ahead head on a neck so stiff from an old injury that looking at anything above my head is not, shall we see, comfy. Stargazing is best done flat on my back.

It was a lot of fun, though, and did a lot for my state of mind.

I'll add to this post tomorrow but times a snapping at my heels and I wanted to get this up.