A couple of months ago, I ran into Darren Bason a former world surf kayak champ now living in Mooloolaba on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. He'd hooked up with Terry Petch who used to make Apache waveskis and designed a surf kayak around waveski principles. This was 6 weeks before the World Surf Kayak Titles in Portugal. I decided to go and the kayak was ready 2 weeks before my flight. The transition from a waveski isn't that difficult it's just a matter of getting comfortable, from my first surf I could see the potential and it didn't take long before I was getting it in the air.

The trip over is a long one about 32 hrs door to door. The kayak came in one piece others weren't so lucky. I went straight down to the comp site for surf and met a bunch of kayakers keen to look over my new toy. The waves were a gentle 3 feet and it was great to get in the water. Over the next 4 days I spent as much time as possible getting used to the waves and kayak. Only one hiccup was when I got smashed paddling out and broke one of my paddles in half and went for a swim. Lucky I brought two.

The Ocean Spirit festival is promoted as the worlds biggest surf sport carnival combining surf kayaking, kiteboarding, skimboarding, surfing and a 10 day music festival on the beach at Santa Cruz, its a big setup.

As a newby, you have to go through the trials and then 2 heats later and your in round one where the seeds come in and the competition steps up a level. There are no losers rounds or reps to fall back on. If you get 3rd or 4th - your out. The big names like Harvey, Hobson, Speller, Bason and Bingham were all getting air and its game on. The run other divisions in parallel and the masters were running at the same time as the open division. I was starting to get on a roll getting in sync with the waves and landing moves and before I knew it it was the Masters Final.

Last day of competition and the surf and weather turned miserable - 1-2 feet onshore. Slow start and missed out on the Open final by 0.23. The Masters final was on 3 hrs later, Gary Adcock opened with a 6.5 which was one of the days biggest wave scores. I just went for it then picked off a set wave big reo 7.5 then finished with a 6.5 and finished off with the Masters title and highest heat total of the day. Dave Speller showed his class in the open final with solid combinations to take it out from Edu the Basque rider, Nathan Eades and James Hawker.

The teams event has equal billing to the individuals with England taking it out thanks to Darren Bason's efforts from the Basques. Other divisions include Juniors, womens and grand masters in both short and long boats. All the results can be found at www.kayaksurf.net.

The presentation was awesome, everyone went into the pool followed by far too many capirinhas. All in all the best competition I've ever been to. Rumour has it that Bruno Melo, the Ocean Spirit Director wants the next World Waveski Titles, he's got my vote.

Queensland Canoeing has applied to host the next kayak worlds in 2011. So lets see if we can get an Aussie team together and take on the Europeans and North Americans at their own game.