Day 6 - New Years Eve

Morning

A little bit of swell has hung around but the full moon tide is pretty low. There is one bank at BP offering some shorebreak runners but it is really inconsistent. There are long waits and then six waves at once. But it is a perfect morning with clear water, blue sky and light offshores.

Juniors is looking ok but not really linking. There is the odd one that is offering a run off the reef and onto the sand but they are few and far between.

Morning (8.30)

Waves            : 1 - 2"

Wind              : SE

Quality           : 3.5 out of 5

Crowd           : up to 4

Wave count   : 20 +

Board            : 9'4" log and a few on 9'0" mal

Early Afternoon

Sea breeze is in and strengthening. There are a few wind waves starting to form but quality isn't great. Might be ok if you want one last wave for the year and missed out yesterday or this morning.

Arvo (3.00)

Waves        : 1'+

Wind          : strengthening SW

Quality       : 2 out of 5

Crowd       : 0

Day Five - 30/12/09

Early Morning

A little bit of a blow came in overnight and was still going this morning. The waves looked like early winter, mushy and dirty. Even the air smelt of salt and the ocean. The swell was really south and you could see it moving past BP. Somewhere it was pumping.

Morning (7.45)

Waves          : 2'+

Wind            : strong SSW

Quality         : 1.5 out of 5

Crowd         : 2 body board groms

Late Arvo

Wind gradually backed off and turned more southerly. The tide filled in and later it was quite good. The waves were a reasonable size but very hard to catch. The were holding up close to shore and one extra wiggle got you dumped in dry sand. There was a little crowd but only a couple were able to make the most of those that ran down the bank. One guy at Juniors (pictured) which had short choppy rides. He mixed little cover ups with cutbacks and tail slides. Although within spitting distance of each other the waves at Juniors and BP were very different.

Arvo (5.30)
Waves          : 2+ breaking close to shore
Wind            : South-ish, not totally sideshore but not onshore either
Quality         : 2.7 out of 5
Crowd         : Up to 20
Board          : 6'9" dhu-fish
Wave Count : 15

Day Four -29th December 2009

Early Morning

Perfect conditions, light offshore, low-mid tide, glassy conditions but NO SWELL !!!!!!!!!!

Morning (7.50)

Waves           : 0"

Wind             : SE

Quality          : 0 out of 5

Afternoon

Grey and overcast with light onshore winds. It looks like there is some motion in the ocean but the swell is from the wrong direction and not hitting anything. The tide is pretty high.

Arvo (4.50)
Waves        : 3"
Wind          : light SSW
Quality       : 0.1 out of 10

Day Three - 28th December 2009

Early Morning


Dismal. Flat.

Morning (7.50)
Waves      : Flat
Wind        : SSE with onshore wonky-ness
Quality     : 0 out of 5
Crowd     : 0

Afternoon


Just as dismal but onshore. Nothing even remotely surfable.

Arvo (4.30)

Waves      : Dribble

Wind        : WSW

Quality      : 0 out of 5

Crowd      : 0

Day 2 - 27th December 2009

Morning

This morning was flat. The wind started to turn onshore early but first up it was just a bit of cross shore drift. BP had no waves but there was one grom-ette at Juniors learning her craft.

Morning (8.30)
Waves             : Flat
Wind               : SSE but turning
Quality            : 0.5 out of 5
Crowd            : 1 at Juniors, 2 at BP

Afternoon

The wind came onshore but didn't really strengthen to anything significant. Most of the time it sat around 20 knots from the WSW. There were just a few foam balls drifting off Juniors to tempt me into the water. It was small and not linking off the reef. There were one or two runners off the shallower parts of the reef and a bigger set came through giving false hope for later. Pretty average surf but a nice way to wash off a day's DIY grime.

Arvo (4.00)
Waves            : 6"
Wind              : WSW
Quality            : 2 out of 5
Wave Count    : 12
Board             : 7'6" mini mal
Crowd            : 2 learners on soft boards and a body boarder

Day One - Boxing Day

This morning was flat and onshore. The WSW wind was blowing from mid-morning but stayed at about 20 kph most of the day.

Late this arvo there was a very small wind swell with the winds more southerly. The swell buoy hit 0.18 metres but it is a little sheltered from this swell direction. The waves at BP were just breaking and were full shore-breakers. One guy went out so I followed.

It was one of those surfs where it didn't look good but you couldn't tell unless you went out. It wasn't very good but nice way to end the day anyway.

Morning  (9.00) 
Flat and onshore
Arvo (5.45)
Waves              : 6" to 1', southerly side/onshore
Quality              : 2 out of 5
Wave count      : 8
Board               : 7'6" mini-mal
Crowd              : 1

Seven waves in seven days 2009

On an ASL cover DVD they filmed the same break at the same time every day for a month. Last year I did the same thing except with less commitment. Instead of a month it was the seven days between Christmas day and New Years Eve and at a range of times.  The video was uploaded to YouTube and has had 190+ views.




This year this blog will record (hopefully) six of these days in words, pics and some video. I've already missed Christmas Day (which was flat) and with less days off than last year the results will be interesting.

Merry Christmas

A day late but I sat out in the water for 3 hours waiting for the Christmas swell !!!!!!!!!!

Some "waves" this arvo

Southerly all day but later this afternoon there were a few small, full waves at BP. With the wind basically blowing side-shore it was a wind swell rather than wind waves. For periods the wind dropped and it was pretty glassy.

But for all that it was barely hip height and most lacked any power. If you were lucky there was a couple of wiggles in them. On the other hand they were the best waves in Bunbury for a few weeks.

Maybe there will be a swell in Father Christmas' sack this year !!!!!!!

Flys

Whats worse than going to the beach to find it completely flat ? Having 10 millions flys land on you as soon as you get out of the car.

Today was so bad that every time I clapped my hands in front of my face I killed a fly. Target rich environment. When you mainly breath through your mouth and you have your hands full it is not an nice experience at the moment.

I'm over the heat and the lack of waves. Its December not February so we should at least have a ripple somewhere.

The water was perfectly clear today, tide was nice and the wind a bit southerly but nothing to drastic. Inly thing missing was some kind of wave. The harbour bouy is reading less than 20 centimetres of swell and thats the weekend peak !

I'll even take a dribble wind wave at the moment. One forecast site has a little jump on Tuesday but I won't hold my breath.

ASP is over for 2009

With the end of the 2009 WCT the seeded surfers for next year have been released. Lots of the bottom rung of WCT surfers have disappeared after failing to back up on the 'QS and there are some exciting rippers taking up rookie spots next year. Owen Wright made the WCT and Andy Irons was given the ASP wildcard he was promised before taking a break in 2009.

Taj finished fifth ater his win at Pipe and a reasonable year. Four of the top five were Australian but the rest of the top ten were Yanks and Adriano DeSouza.

On the womens side Steph Gilmore ended up winning easy. WA's Clare Bevilacqa made it back to the 'CT with a strong WQS season. Jessie Miley-Dyer back up on the QS to keep her spot and will be joined by super-grom Carissa Moore and Tom's little girl, Lee-Ann Curren. Unfortunately Alana Blanchard is out.

Next year both a new seeding system and the number of surfers in each event will change after Tahiti. Eventually there will be a single rating system but that will be fully implemented in 2011. After Chopes the number of surfers will drop from 45 on the 'CT to 32 plus wildcards. Anyone on the WCT in that bottom 13 will be back on the WQS. From then on the events will have 36 surfers (top 32, 2 ASP wildcards and 2 event wildcards) basically cutting a day off the running time.

Mundaka has been cut with the licence moving from Billabong to Rip Curl but remaining in Europe.

The Mens and Womens WCT surfers are -

ASP Top 27 (ASP World Tour)
Mick Fanning (AUS)
Joel Parkinson (AUS)
Bede Durbidge (AUS)
Taj Burrow (AUS)
Adriano de Souza (BRA)
Kelly Slater (USA)
C.J. Hobgood (USA)
Bobby Martinez (USA)
Damien Hobgood (USA)
Dane Reynolds (USA)
Jordy Smith (ZAF)
Taylor Knox (USA)
Tom Whitaker (AUS)
Kieren Perrow (AUS)
Fredrick Patacchia (HAW)
Dean Morrison (AUS)
Kai Otton (AUS)
Kekoa Bacalso (HAW)
Mick Campbell (AUS)
Chris Davidson (AUS)
Michel Bourez (PYF)
Ben Dunn (AUS)
Adrian Buchan (AUS)
Tiago Pires (PRT)
Jeremy Flores (FRA)
Roy Powers (HAW)
Drew Courtney (AUS)

Top 15 (ASP WQS)
Dan Ross (AUS)
Patrick Gudauskas (USA)
Jadson Andre (BRA)
Adam Melling (AUS)
Owen Wright (AUS)
Luke Munro (AUS)
Jay Thompson (AUS)
Nathan Yeomans (USA)
Dusty Payne (HAW)
Brett Simpson (USA)
Matt Wilkinson (AUS)
Tanner Gudauskas (USA)
Travis Logie (ZAF)
Marco Polo (BRA)
Blake Thornton (AUS)

ASP Wildcards:
Andy Irons (HAW)
Luke Stedman (AUS)
Neco Padaratz (BRA)

The national breakdown for the 2010 ASP World Tour is:

Australian: 46.7%
American: 22.2%
Hawaiian: 11.1%
Brazilian: 8.9%
South African: 4.4%
French: 2.2%
Tahitian: 2.2%
Portuguese: 2.2%

Top 10 (ASP Women’s World Tour)
Stephanie Gilmore (AUS)
Silvana Lima (BRA)
Sofia Mulanovich (PER)
Coco Ho (HAW)
Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS)
Melanie Bartels (HAW)
Chelsea Hedges (AUS)
Paige Hareb (NZL)
Rebecca Woods (AUS)
Rosanne Hodge (ZAF)

Top 6 (ASP WQS)
Jessi Miley-Dyer (AUS)
Carissa Moore (HAW)
Claire Bevilacqua (AUS)
Lee Ann Curren (FRA)
Bruna Schmitz (BRA)
Nikita Robb (ZAF)

ASP Wildcard
Amee Donohoe (AUS)

The national breakdown for the 2010 ASP Women’s World Tour is:

Australian: 41.2%
Hawaiian: 17.7%
Brazilian: 11.8%
South African: 11.8%
Peruvian: 5.9%
New Zealand: 5.9%
French: 5.9%

Some XXL nominations from this month

Flat again

There is a few waves down south but with a little bit of southerly on them. The tide is super low. There was a dog running around on the reef at Marges where it would normally be waist deep !

Not looking good for a while unless we get some cyclone swell !

Summer is here

Hot and totally flat over the weekend.

Flat this morning with a desperation dribble wind wave late this arvo.

Expect this pattern for a while.

Mick Fanning is world champ

Parko has just been eliminated in round three making Mick Fanning the new World Champ.


Round four is on in decent waves. Fuel TV is showing it live

Have I mentioned this before ???

Hot and flat.

Tomorrow - hot and flat.

Summer is here and its no fun !!!!!!!

Round two is over

The Pipe Masters run the rest of round two last night and hopefully tonight the higher seeds, especially Parko and Mick, will surf for the first time in round three. Both are up against Hawaiian wildcards. Mick will surf against Torey Meister who only made the contest when Sunny Garcia turned up late for his round one heat. If Torey wins this heat he will challenge for the Triple Crown, which Parko has a grip on. Parko takes on Gavin Gillette in the second last heat. Gillette flogged Mick Campbell in round two.

Taj has a horror draw coming up against Bruce Irons. Bruce pulled into one of the biggest and deepest Backdoor pits on day one. His brother Andy was all over Backdoor today, riding deeper and longer than anyone else and having a round two score of 18.40 out of 20. One wave where he stalled through a long barrel and then came out for a power figure 8 cutback re-entry was topped off with a little 360 in the foam. Worth watching on the heat on demand.

Fuel TV are showing the contest live for those with Foxel and it is webcast. With the dual heat format and hopefully good waves, it will be good viewing

BILLABONG PIPE MASTERS ROUND 3 MATCH-UPS:
Heat 1: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. Dean Morrison (AUS)
Heat 2: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. Torrey Meister (HAW)
Heat 3: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. Andy Irons (HAW)
Heat 4: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. John John Florence (HAW)
Heat 5: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. Flynn Novak (HAW)
Heat 6: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. Michael Picon (FRA)
Heat 7: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. Chris Ward (USA)
Heat 8: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. Hank Gaskell (HAW)
Heat 9: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. Liam McNamara (HAW)
Heat 10: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. Roy Powers (HAW)
Heat 11: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. Bruce Irons (HAW)
Heat 12: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. Dayyan Neve (AUS)
Heat 13: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. Phillip MacDonald (AUS)
Heat 14: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. Shane Dorian (HAW)
Heat 15: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. Gavin Gillette (HAW)
Heat 16: Dane Reynolds (USA) vs. Kekoa Bacalso (HAW)

Pipeline Masters has started

The Billabong Pipeline Masters has started in some great looking waves. Pipeline is breaking both ways at 6 - 8 foot and offshore. Its sunny and blue and looks like classic Hawaii.

They are running the dual heat, basically two seperate two man heat running at the same time, which means there are plenty of waves being ridden. Scores are consistently in the high sevens and early eights and the high seeds don't surf till round three.

The webcast is top quality as you expect from a WCT event and worth watching.

Greg Long wins the Eddie

Well known big wave charger Greg Long has won the Eddie is some nice big waves at Waimea Bay. The last few Eddie's have been held on brown stormy days but today's conditions were nearly perfect and for a change the water was blue and so was the sky

What was interesting this year is how 25 + feet doesn't seem big or dangerous any more. Many of the surfers seemed to be playing with the conditions like it was a 2 foot beachie, being goaded by the crowd into trying to link up to the inside and pull into a dry suck death pit in the shorebreak. Having said that there was something extra to this event compared top watching endless tow ins.

Check out the heats on demand at the Eddie website.




RESULTS: Listed in order of 1st through 28th
Greg Long (California)
Kelly Slater (Florida)
Sunny Garcia (Hawaii)
Bruce Irons (Hawaii)
Ramon Navarro (Chile) * Monster Drop Award
Ross Clarke-Jones (Australia)
Jamie O'Brien (Hawaii)
Mark Healey (Hawaii)
Garret McNamara (Hawaii)
Noah Johnson (Hawaii)
Shane Dorian (Hawaii)
Makuakai Rothman (Hawaii)
Reef McIntosh (Hawaii)
Andy Irons (Hawaii)
Grant Baker (Hawaii)
Carlos Burle (Brazil)
Kohl Chrtistensen (Hawaii)
Kala Alexander (Hawaii)
Peter Mel (USA)
Takayuki Wakita (Japan)
Ibon Amatriain (Spain)
Clyde Aikau (Hawaii)
Keone Downing (Hawaii)
Mike Ho (Hawaii)
Darryl 'Flea' Virostko (USA)
Brian Keaulana (Hawaii)
Rusty Keaulana (Hawaii)
Pancho Sullivan (Hawaii)

Eddie is go

As predicted a big swell has hit Waimea and the Eddie is on. Slater is currently leading from Andy Irons and Ross Clarke Jones.

The waves are big and clean, the weather is fine and the surfing unbelievable. These guys are surfing like it is 3 foot mush burgers. Andy, Kelly and Jamie O'Brien have all linked to the shore break and tried to get tubed on the massive dumpers.

Its live on the net with a couple more heats left here.

WQS ends

With the O'Neill World Cup over the fat lady has sung on the men's WQS. The top 15 will now be on the WCT next year, at least for the first few events before the new ratings system kicks in.

The final 15 ASP WQS qualifiers are:
Ross, Daniel AUS
Gudauskas, Patrick USA
Andre, Jadson BRA
Melling, Adam AUS
Wright, Owen AUS
Munro, Luke AUS
Thompson, Jay AUS
Yeomans, Nathan USA
Payne, Dusty HAW
Simpson, Brett USA
Wilkinson, Matt AUS
Gudauskas, Tanner USA
Logie, Travis ZAF
Polo, Marco BRA
Thornton, Blake AUS

Jay Thompson may re-qualify with a good result at Pipe and then no. 16 will take his place. There are a couple of gumbies there who seem to do the tour yo-yo each year, being just good enough to re-qualify via the 'QS but struggling to make it out of a 'CT round one.

Interestingly the current bottom 15 of the WCT haven't bothered to cross qualify and will drop out after the last event.

Parko wins at Sunset

After a layday where it was too big for Sunset but too small for the Eddie, Parko has won the WQS O'Neill World Cup on the last day of the waiting period.

He beat world title nemesis Mick Fanning, old hand Sunny Garcia and Hawaiian Dusty Payne. With his good result in the first event a finals berth at Pipe could give him both his second Triple Crown and his first world title. The last news was that Pipe was full of sand and just a close out so it will be interesting to see if the recent swell has moved stuff around. The waiting period starts tomorrow night our time.

The waves were big and pretty clean at Sunset, with tubes and huge hacks off the top scoring well. The sort of day you think you could almost handle it ..... until a clean up set comes through !!!

Rumour is that a massive swell will hit tomorrow and the Eddie might go !!!!

Summer's here

Another hot and flat day.

The wind is quite strong from a south-ish direction. It might be worth checking later for something in the onshore or maybe a glass off but I wouldn't be putting money on it.

Hot

but flat

Swell up, tide down

Swell has picked up a little but the full moon has left a really low tide. Its probably the lowest of the last few weeks, which means very, very low.