Ouch !!!!!!!

Went to Dunsborough to look at a new board today. Mark "Hillzy" Hills at Yahoo Surfboards lent me a 6'4" Kelvinator to try out.

There is hardly any swell but I decided to try it out at very small Shallows. Normally I wouldn't have bothered but it was clear, offshore and empty and I wanted to try the board anyway.

It wasn't that hot but to my dismay the path down was firey black sand. I haven't lived further than a k from a beach for 30 years, must have gone to the beach thousands of time and been down that path 50. Until today I had never burnt my feet. The soles of my feet and most of my toes are covered in blisters. It's a bit off putting when you stand up and can feel the blistered skin squishing around in your wax.

Regardless the board went really well, especially as it was so tiny. The board is a thick slab and I'm planning to replace my 7'6" mini mal with it. It needs to be able to surf crappy Juniors and if it can catch waves today, it can catch them anywhere.

Needless to say I put in my order and hopefully it will be ready soon.

Locally it is flat, proper flat. The harbour buoy is at 0.17 and the wind is blowing any chances of swell towards South Africa. The forecast isn't looking great but the cyclone could change it. Don't expect a Bianca swell though.

Days off

Got a couple of mid week days off as I'm working the weekend. Emailed a few friends with view to heading south. As usual people started dropping out here and there until it was just two of us.

Conditions were nice. The swell was pretty small (around 1.4 on the buoy) and the offshore was howling but after checking three spots we decided on a beach break just north of Supertubes.

The waves were only about 1 - 2 foot but super clean and wally. Even at that size there was plenty of push.

The warning of a washed up whale carcass bringing sharks kept us watching and the super clear water had every piece of weed looking like a creature.

It took me a while to get some rhythm, missing a lot of waves and getting stuck behind the section but my friend was surfing better than I had seen before. We swapped board and he pulled off a couple of big slashes on my short and loser dhu-fish.

The only negatives were having to leave with waves still pumping in, ending up with a swollen elbow from a rail collision and sunburn.

Did I mention that we were the only ones out ?

Elsewhere there were plenty of winter banks hanging around. The stretch from Rabbits past Shallows had a number of peaks and quite a few surfers. Mitchell Rocks may not have been throwing up the Cyclone Biancca wedge but there were one or two peaks. They did look a bit frustrating as the surfers tried to decide to wait out the back or inside for the suckier and more consistent one.

Hot and offshore over the next few days. It doesn't look like there will be much swell but you can always be surprised.