The fourth Round of the East Coast Circuit was held on Saturday 13 th September 2008. From my eyes, this is how it went.

I drove up on Thursday night with my girlfriend from Wollongong and made it as far as Coffs Harbour. Who would have thought the Formula 1 hotel would be booked out so we took what we could that late at night and slept in the dirtiest hotel run by some half giant with a wig. The hotel was at the bottom of a hill on the main road so you couldn’t help but hear and feel every truck groan past using its compression brakes all night. I slept like a baby, Adriana got maybe two hours sleep.

Bright and early we headed to Ballina. Checked into a cabin at the local Caravan Park and went for a surf check. The only place I found waves was South Wall, protected from the northerly that had set in for the weekend. Two- three foot waves that were nice but I could wait for Saturday.

The comp was held at South Wall about 300m from the wall itself leaving the cleaner more protected break for the locals. There was a nice bank down the beach that would have been awesome if it was a foot or two bigger but at 2-3ft was a little fickle. There were two banks you could surf. Both had lefts and rights but in the small conditions some people had trouble deciding which bank to surf or which way (left or rights) and some moved from bank to bank missing the sets on both banks, others like myself found an abundance of waves on both banks leaving competitors scratching their heads. So in the end it all came down to luck.

Although small, the waves had a bit of punch and did allow for some competitive surfing. Numbers were down, allowing the comp to be run over the one day. Everyone there, was there to firstly have a good time but secondly maybe snatch a win. And given the tricky conditions you couldn’t call the results of any heat before the hooter had blown.

The Open division went to two man heats from the semi’s onwards. Great idea because conditions did deteriorate in the afternoon as the wind became stronger.

Honourable mentions go to:

-Timers and hooter blowers. Timing for heats was left to more primitive methods being wrist watch and hand held air horn. Worked a treat and for the first comp in my life I could hear the hooter loud and clear

• Steve Howarth only person to break the nose off his ski. Someone had it coming on the shallow beach break and Steve gracefully cart wheeled his ski on his first wave of the heat early in the day.
• Jason Dresher because the judges didn’t give it a mention, for his kick ass aerial on a 2ft wave. He took off, first manoeuvre was the smoothest cleanest air back onto the green face. He was later advised that judges hadn’t called it an air and thought it was an ugly turn because he came down a bit sideways. Lucky for me. I was in that heat and sitting about as close as you want to get to Jason getting air on a 2ft wave.
• Gary Ross for his ski with f-18 fighter tape on it. He told me that he has this special sticky tape that is actually metal. Apparently the air-force stick our fighter planes up with it when they get holes in them. He reckons he uses it sparingly. Not sure if it was doing a good job though as he has about 40 patches of his fighter plane metal tape on his ski. Maybe next time ask the navy for some of their tape Gary.
• Matt Kennedy for his sand eating baby. Not sure if that’s healthy for you daughter Matt.
• And the call of the day was Matt's wife “ Can you put normal sunscreen on a baby” and Terry Oehms respons, “No it melts them”.

If nothing else the comp was a great social event and I think all had fun. Entry fees turned into prize money and was handed out to the finalist and some of that went back over the bar at Ballina RSL and Hooters Restaurant on the Gold Coast on Sat night.

This is the fourth event of the East Coast Ciruit and all placings will receive points towards an overall point score winner for 2008.

Results

Photos

Check out some photo's of the event courtesy of Steve Farthing.

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