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Hope you can help out here. My English Lit class is studying the play Blackrock which is set in a fictional town on the east coast (near Newcastle). It is set in the 90's and the male characters are all surfers. I was hoping I could show my class your posts so if you could post some thoughts on what it means to be a surfer, what commercialisation did to the sport, surf icons of that era, fashions!!, out of water activities (keep it clean!!) and the surf trip with mates(one of the main characters returns from a round OZ trip and talks about Jakes!!), any pics would be awesome. They will view the film which is helpful but some insight from the well educated and dedicated crew from the forum would prove invaluable. Thanks in advance.
The good old 90s.
The surf was always better, less crowds,good banks,no SUPs.
The music for me was grunge.Pearl Jam,Nirvana etc.
Sunday sessions at the Lookout and Club A.
Great times all round
Great thread!
I was a grom in the 90's in Qld . I remember surfing Kirra as good as it gets uncrouded . VERY UNCROUDED at South Straddie. Noosa still had dirt path's in the National Park. Double Island Point only one car would stop for a surf . We all had long hair , and the chicks loved it! $2 tallies at the Burliegh heads Drive through!
One thing that I think was a main difference was the weather patterns . There used to be afternoon glass offs a few times a week , and the swells were alot more consistent .
We all drove VC/VH "Dunnydoor" wagons and listened to either Aussie Rock and Alternative music or American Punk rock. Surf movies were very popular - Suns of Fun , Focus , Billabong Challenge,, still some of the best flicks ever made IMO!
Quite often on a long weekend we would fang down to "Newy" over a friday night then Hit Angourie , Lennox on the way back up..... Ahh soo much driving and we just didnt care . Every one seemed stoked on surfing and just hanging out.
Alot of Asians in the surf on the Gold coast and a few fights starting to show up here and there , especially when Boat man started running across the seaway to TOS.
Best Era of my life!!! would I do it all over the same again? Bloody oath!
how about an extended response Doggie, love to hear your take on it, especially the shift from commercialism to free surfing eg Curren's "dropout" and things like RipCurls search promotion. Kids had a look today and loved Kearnsy's response.
Ahhhh doggie,
I too started on an old blue single fin. A mate found it on a 'bring out ya dead ' rubbish collection, snapped 1/4 way down. His dad fixed it with cement I think it was that fa#$@# heavy, big ol fin could chop ya leg off, no leg rope. Fixed that problem with a dog collar and an old jelly rubber (Magiver was big at the time on TV..boy would he have been proud) Man that big ole board would fly back at ya faster than it ever travelled with you on top of it...learnt pretty quick to stay on that old beast.
FINALLY a new second maybe third hand board from SANTOSHA (remember them) this bugger had three fins was beautiful in grey and pink and all for $150, a massive price then. So to go with that my flouro pink boardies and flouro green/orange wettie had me carving like a young BARTON LYNCH or BENTONE MORAN at SUZIES KIOSK (now trigg carpark thirds) then
Sorrento groynes were firing in the rvo, would wait all day for the seabreeze, LAZOR ZAPS were in and BLAXELL BLITZ was ......'mintox'
All the HOT CHIX knew what our motives were and would wear big tshirts over there high cut flouro bikinis and hide behind original oakley frogskins or rayban CATSEYES thus denying our highly charged hormones the beautiful sights todays groms get!!!!
Any way come thursdays and sundays a trip to SANTOSHA for some wax would get you a freebie into CLUB A at the LOOKOUT..dressed to kill in SURF PUNK, sexpistols/clash/billy idol style and moshed/pogoed to the DEAD KENNEDYS till the bastard bouncers had enough of punks and ROIDERS and GOTHS moved in.
ahh memories, surf trips down dirt tracks to SURF BEACH, death defying high speed rally driving down the SPOT track in DATO1600s risking a visit from the 'LOCALS' during campfire sleepovers to be first out the spot...always unsuccessful as too much EMU BITTER and GOONBAG makes you sleep in!
Burning spiders in the Dunsborough laundromat coz there was f@#$%%@@##all else to do!!!!! at night coz the 20 people living in the tiny quiet town would all be asleep and my mates dad was at the pub so we couldn't buy our illicit requirements from there
the beginning of the end for me.... 1985.... started surfing/crafting/tracking in the hunt for chixs and have never looked back....LOVE IT, changed who i am what i do where my spare money goes (bugger me boards for nearly $10000, wetties upwards of $300, boardies $80+) my crowd of mates
SURFING
only a surfer knows the feeling eh doggie
thanks to mocha and doggie, awesome boys. I'll have to decode most of it for the 16 year old students but they've enjoyed that part so far! Club A was the epicentre wasn't it, remember the huge bouncer think his name was Bluff, big maori fella. forgot about that cafe at Trigg too. Once again thanks for ya time and be rest assured that this generation enjoy studying ancient history!! (I'm 40 and feel about 100 talking about this stuff) We are based in mandurah so the secrets bit will be interesting for them. cheers
Back in the 90's. Well Potter was changing the style from power to more acrobat. The girls bathers were freaking awesome ( they were so skimpy and high cut ) and we all had bad manners.
We are so politically straight these day's it is nearly like living in a communist country.
I don't think there was as much hate among anyone, but Australia was just coming out of a time that the economy was slow, jobs were rare and pay was ****, the builders union just about ran the country so we had more of a brickies attitude.
The drug scene was pot and trips with the E's just starting to make there mark.
If your into firewire, well Bert Burgar was just starting to develop what is now considerd to be Nev's board ridden by Taj.
The VN fuel injected was now the car of Australia, but the teen surfers were driving anything from HD to HQ or an early type Hilux.
Potter had just started to do, airs so that was the new thing to try and do. Boards went from thick to thin with a Rocker that was to help with the new free style of air. This was a time of change. Surfers were moving away from the hippie stereo type and moving to a more hard core speed based extreme sports.
The big names of the industry had already had a strong hold on price rip off and you never saw a pom trying to surf, it was to hot and to hard, and Steve Waugh had just put together a team of Pom killers that kept them at a safe distance.
Oh and we had coloured wet suits, pink and grey, red yelloe and black, Fluoro of all sorts.
No street lights after midnight and no 24 hour shops. We had Servo's that were on roster for the weekend, if you missed out on filling your car up on Friday, then you didn't go for a big drive up and down the coast you just hung out at your local. In the second half of the 90's nearly everything was 24/7.
Oh the chicks bathers.
thanks Water Man, interesting observation on the hate side of things, i can recall that Trigg Point kinda changed in the early 90's. Some of the crew developed a "point pass" thing that meant if you didn't live in the postcode or attend Carine, Scabs High or drank at the Lookout or The Castle you were on the outer. Also Scimitar was on the radar. I also remember a mate started up S.A.L.T, as a kneelo I narrowly avoided this "apartheid" based idea, any recollections of this stuff?
Oh man , memories sort of flooding back ! Went to scarb high , grad 89 , Hated the point .Was scarbs only with mates aplenty to terrorise lids ! Wedge trips were the go ,gath helmets on in the back of Micks ute ,always had it to ourselves ! So Many parties back then ,one every week ! Anyone go the infamous trigg riot ? Was full on to see , but most parties back then were all good , few fights etc ,but not like the s*** you see now . Was just kegs and bourbon , if it flopped it was then on to lookout as many have mentioned . Was a sad day for scarbs when it shut down , everything changed down there . In the earlier days before going to pub , it was bonfires on the beach thanks to the pine boxes around the little pines , great firewood ! Could go all day , great memories ! Jonni , Get in and tell your stories ,maybe write the book first !
Aaaaaahhhhhhhhhh the 90's.
Being a young bloke in my early teens growing up in Bunbury was great. Back then we actually has some surf before they port authority started raping our local beaches of sand. Now surf in bunno has juut about vanished.
The 90's for me was a time of exploration as i got my driver licence in 1990 so down south trips were the go. Every trip i would take the next turn off on caves road (in the 1978 corrola panel van then 4WD's)
I was riding local shapes mainly Albean rounded pins and swallows ranging from 6'3"s the 7'0"s.
Wetsuits were mostly black and the Billabong movies were unreal, such as The green iguana being my fav. It was mostly grunge music and long hair. we all wanted to surf like Curren and Occy(even though he spent some time on the couch inthe 90's)
Winter trips to the NW and beyond were unreal as the name spots up there were in the their last days of being semi secrets.
gee its seems like yesterday. i ended the 90's living at Caves house in yalls surfing every day and loving life.
Now its kids, mortage and work. I have got back into windsurfing big time and now SUP as my back is stuffed from being a carpenter. i still love surfing down the coast but my old favorite spots are so crowed i just cant bring my self to paddle out.
oh and back then Injidup Pt seemed to be going off all the time with no one on it!!
Yep was at the Trigg Party and saw the keg go thru the windscreen I think it was a truck or a paddy wagon. Gnarly night that one. Hundreds of pissy idiots vaulting fences, dodging irate home owners and aggro dogs trying to get away from an over zealous riot squad.
Had a similar response to a party we had at a share house in Princess Rd (I think) in Doubleview helicopters circling, riot vans the works. Neighbors were a bit off us after that
Waves were definitely better, Floreat & City groynes at a proper 3-4ft, Southside City in winter, heavy fast long right hand pits with the take off straight out the front of the groyne. Backbeach Swanny, epic Cott Groyne when the front bar was still there, surf your tits off in solid cold waves then stand in front of the open fires with a middy taking in the view of the line up. Used to peak out past the groyne and barrel left through to Slimys. Grant St death tubes.
Meets, Kay St, Brighton Drain, Manning St, Contacio (always best when enough sand had been moved to expose the reef) seeing the water lapping at the carpark retaining wall at Scabs pre dune reclamation days. Getting absolutely drilled trying to get out the back at Scabs on big days. I remember surfing it one day when there was a Surf Carnival on and it was just mayhem, surf boats getting smashed, flotsam through the line up. And big. Big like Perth doesn't get anymore.
Mullaloo Point just farking cooking, perfect headhigh rights grinding along a shallow bank for well over 100m. Still the best wave I've ever seen in Perth, by far. Getting stuck in seaweed monsters and cobbler galore when you didn't make a section, hated getting in and out here when it was weeded up.
Camping at Spot and Derrs and even Claytons pre marina (although that would've been early to mid 80's not 90's. Not to mention classic Surf Beach.
Moore Rivermouth before the Gingin shire started opening the mouth on the south side completely changing the ecology of the whole river system and screwing up one of my favorite waves forever. I had hoped that the 99 flood courtesy of Cyclone Steve was going to take it back to it's former glory but it didn't.
All of our good winter surf used to come after big norwest storms, would blow it's arse off for three or four days from the north before swinging around through the south to east. We don't seem to get those fronts anymore and if we do get weather from the north it's lucky to last a day. The last good norwest front I can remember was in May '94.
Wonder if it's climate change or just cyclical? Would be interesting to see what happens to all of Perths reclaimed beaches if the weather swings back. Would love to see some proper waves around here again.
Wow, everyone's the same age.
Grommets would get tied up in board bags (board socks in those days) and rolled off the steep sand dune at Cove, or stuffed in the steel mesh/yellow sheet bins and couldn't get out.
Use to hang out at Sammies Pizza Bar with our skateys all summer. Sammy and his brother would chase us out with a baseball bat when we'd manhandle the pinnies too hard. Until the shop burnt down.
I remember surfing Shallows with my mate at 14, inexperienced. My mum on the beach. We paddled out in a lull, then 6 footers started rolling in. A sneaker set came and we paddled for the horizon. I punched through and looked back. My mate was a smoker and lagged behind me. He almost broke surface tension and was sucked backwards over the falls. He got washed in after 4 or 5 more waves almost dead. My mum couldn't have done a thing, not experienced enough in surf. It took me almost 45 minutes to time my dash in to shore between sets, with brown undies.
Same mate and I at Easter one year, out at Smiths. 4wds fang down the beach and they're launching a tinny. They start waving their arms and shouting "get out of the water, get out of the water". It was an oily, glassy, grey day. A sharky day. 4' oily pits at Smiths main, just he and I out. We would've been 15. Of course we didn't realise what was up and panicked and scrambled for the shore. They told us we were in the way of their salmon school and obviously they had priority.
Used to need 4wd for the old Bears track, kept the crowds down. The Pattos had an old blue Suzuki Sierra and once we got a flat and couldn't work out why the jack wasn't lifting the car. Turns out we were young and stupid and the jack was in the wrong place and peeling the sheet metal like a banana. We could've lifted it ourselves easier anyway. Which they did another time apparently when 10 people were riding in/on it down the Gallows track and it tipped over.
After leaving school and the obligatory two weeks at Rotto a mate and I went to Quindalup to my granny's holiday house. We were there from schoolies until Christmas, maybe 3-4 weeks. The town was absolutely dead, just how we wanted it. A far cry from these days. The pub was empty, less that 10 locals on weekends and 3-4 on weekdays. As underagers with no id it was pretty intimidating, but we copped no grief. Every morning we'd be up before 5am for a trip to Bears or Windmills in the old man's F100.
Did the new Bears track in my mate's HZ. It took three attempts up the big sandy hill from the Yallingup end. About 90km/h did it with two of us waiting 3/4 up to run in and give it a push as required. It had dodgy ignition and my mate had to carry a screwdriver to start it by shorting the wires in the steering assembly. As a result of constantly pulling the steering apart, it used to lock up occasionally at a whim, usually on a bend down Caves Road.
Mates brothers lived in Gracetown for many years and were "gardeners" on Paul Keating's surf team. I spent many weeks and weekends down there with them. Surf was empty all year, cold and grey. Most people I knew were goofies so we loved all the lefts, and Northies was (and still is) scary.
Exploring deep jungles like the Balingup pine forest and Black Point was a mission on down days. Although there'd always be waves somewhere down south.
Margs used to be tiny, and Dunsborough had no supermarkets, no shops. I remember when it just used to be the general store on the corner near the phone booths. No malls, no nothing. It's disgusting now, and at holiday time all the western suburb soccer moms are shopping in boutiques and visiting wineries. There are traffic jams and stand-still traffic through both towns all day long. I have also followed this path to an extent, I've become what I despise. I'm restricted to holiday season, and the rest of my extended family appreciates mod-cons. We don't go down south any more. I make flying day-trips for surf and that's it. In a way it's good to be forced to explore more of the state, but I miss Gracetown, Dunsborough of old. I'd love a house on the hill at Gracetown, although it's probably lost its character. It used to be all "gardeners" and dole-bludgers.
There used to be days at Leighton when cold fronts would arrive and the first push of wind was from the north. If you timed it right, you could get it when it was NNE and 2' right-handers would peel down the beach. That doesn't seem to happen much anymore, although it might've last week.
Sand Tracks and Rous Head used to be secret. I went to the former this week on a weekday and there was a minimum of 20 guys out and it wasn't even working. Wow. Good times.
There are reef breaks that I won't surf anymore. The sort of places subasurf goes. They are ridiculous. One peak, one position to take off, 2 waves per set if you're lucky, but 15+ people on that one peak? How does that work? At least there are familiar faces at my old local. Although it didn't work all last winter and I only went out twice.
I like how I still recognise faces, though. I can be almost anywhere in the state and still come across people I know, or who I know rip. There's a respect there, and I've got no problem sharing waves with them. There are others I'd like to get to know, including some seabreezers. But I'm antisocial, sociopathic, introverted, selfish.
Surfing is hard these days. It's made me ultra-competitive in the water, but it's not easy. At one northern just-out-of-metro spot that I've spent a lot of time at in the last few years (Kearnsy's 
) last week, first wave I was too deep, second wave too fat, third wave too deep and another guy dropped in, fourth and five waves blatantly burned by dropper-inners. I got a few after that but I already had a bad taste in my mouth. Same at ST, best wave of the day and a 60 year old kook on a mal with a Gath completely dropped in and I got burned. I paddled back out and the guy sitting near me, a chatty bloke who I've seen once or twice around the place over the last few years and who surfs well laughed in disbelief. There's no respect. Sometimes I think I should join the legions who think it's appropriate to drop in first, pull off later but it goes against everything I believe in. I look, and I won't even paddle if someone else has priority or I feel they deserve it. And if they know what's up and I have priority and they've been waiting or something happened that means they haven't got a good wave in a while I'll ask them, "you going mate?". That rarely happens these days unless I know who they are or know they rip, too many anonymous kooks in the sea of faces.
I continue to fight the fight, and paddle out and hassle grommets less than half my age, and shudder at the huge amount of people and kooks in the water. I will do so as long as I can, but I think that the fire is dying. Surfing isn't what it was, there are no secrets, there is no core. It's a fashion trend. There are fish and funboards and alaias and retro mals. There's no ladder, everyone's entitled to sit out the back and we should hold hands and take turns. There's no local enforcement, there are no locals. So I resort to petty hassling. I hear more English and Kiwi and Brazilian accents than Australians in the water. And yet they regulate me, when there are 4+ of them what chance do I stand?
I met a seabreezer (my only one) last year and he said he doesn't get out like he used to. I could also be keener, but I do get out a lot. It's hard to stay motivated, and I have other commitments and obligations so I don't have much time. Midweek is my domain for now, and I'm thankful that I have that, but the WA FIFO industry is making it difficult. Everyone has afternoons off.
And of course there's the threat of the kooks from the other forum, the cause of my "exile". The rise and rise of the overweight middle-aged kook with superior paddle power continues to scare me. They are encroaching even further up the reefs near my house this year. I guess it's good to tell the other mid-life crisis BMW drivers that you're a "surfer".
There are places and times to rekindle the fire, there is hope. It requires dedication, imagination and money, moreso than ever. You have to be willing to go a bit further than the next guy, look a bit deeper, sacrifice some time to put in hard yards, miss a few sessions in hope of future sessions.
E.g. there was a recent photo in a recent thread. I came across the place when my dad did some work there years ago. He was there for six months spanning around autumn. It was glassy all the time, and waves all the time. I visited him with some mates and we scored big time. I've been back since and been skunked by the same wind that blows the Greenough trees flat, but I've also scored a few more times. Nice town. I'm going to look further east and north, explore a bit. My heart remains in the down south of my youth, but it's a down south that no longer exists, and the "me" from that time no longer exists either.
Yes Wow - great post Legion...
Well, a lot has already been said, but I was in my early 20's in the early '90's and just stepping into a mortgage, so my travels slowed and I spent much of my time sufing metro and near metro breaks...
We also used to fang old holdens down to Surf Beach, Derrs etc and almost have the break to ourselves - and for hours. The last time I went to Derrs it was mid week in March and arrived at 8:00am to find 9 cars and 17 blokes already in the water - kind of depressing! You could surf Smiths, Windmills or Injinup with 4 or 5 others - now when it's on you can't even park your car... we used to rent an on-site van at what is now Smith's Beach Resort... cheap and cheerful but it had showers and you only had to walk over the hill to the surf...
Trigg Point WAS my local - and whilst I wasn't part of the 'A-team' I surfed well enough and was down there often enough that I slotted into the pecking order and got my fill of waves. That was a time when there was always an inside re-form and that's where the grommies went until they paid their dues... Occassionally a goat-boat or knee-boarder - but never a body-boarder and rarely a mal; now BB are a plague and mals are everywhere...
I too used to surf breaks that fired far better than they do today - The Point, 1st reef watermans was the second pick if the point was full... even Mossies at Ocean Reef was worth a look...
There was no such thing as machine shaped boards and the surf shops were about surfing - not fashion. The guy on the counter could tell you how to tint your resin mix and how much catalyst to use... now it's more about clothes...
Now as I am in my mid 40's I find that I too am getting less and less inclined to battle the crowds for mediocre waves just to be dropped-in on... Having said that, I still get a buzz out of a little 2ft screamer, and when you do jag that 'wave of the day' I can't wipe the smile off my face for the rest of the day...
It is true that 'only a surfer knows the feeling'... and I hope to continue well into my 50's...
^^^
Oh, and the surfing was all about 'power turns' and re-entries with style. No airs, tail slides or reverse 360's... even floaters were new.
I remember going to Caves House for New Year's when I was 13 turning 14. There were a small group, me, a couple of mates, one of the mates' sisters and their mates. With all the other people in the beer garden there were maybe 50 people, super chilled. I hooked up with this chick, my mate pashed her later too. Got smashed.
I went to Caves for the next New Year's, and the next, and the next, and so on. One year when I was about 18 we were at Baby's and it was a LAGO and super good, about 4'. We wanted to party but didn't want to go in. We left on dusk and still had a good night.
Another NYE I borrowed the old man's F100 and was also at Bears. On the way home out the new Yallingup track the steering box ripped off the chassis. I hitched out to the burger joint at Caves House and rang home. The old man was having a party and wanted nothing to do with it. I somehow found a local farmer with a tractor and it took us two hours and about $200 to get it skull-dragged out to the road, and all the while I was thinking about the party I was missing. I had to sit in the cab and keep the engine revving because the farmer hooked the front end up to the tractor loader bucket with a chain and reversed out. When he braked the car kept going and went straight into the bucket and left a big cut in the panelwork. I had to run the engine and apply brakes, and because the car was lifted high I had to rev hard so it didn't stall from the angle.
Later on Caves sessions became massively crowded and you needed tickets to get in. I remember you had to pre-buy them or miss out. I tried to lick a girl friend's arm and smear a stamp on my arm. The bouncer would have none of it. I tried later with a different bouncer and said I'd stamped out and then been for a surf so that's why it was smudged. He looked like a surfer. He gave me a wink and said, "In you go".
But with the crowds came violence. My mate almost got smashed in the head with a jug for no reason at one Sunday session. And at those crowded sessions people started to throw stubbies and full cans from the table area down onto the crowded bowling green. They started to close the pub at busy times around then.
I went to a big concert at a winery at some stage for New Year's, after Caves stopped their shows. We were a bit late and queued up on Caves Rd for about an hour to get in. Got a parking spot about 10km from the venue. Drank and smoked in the back of the cars in the lot and when we headed down for the concert we didn't get there until after midnight. Apparently some of my mates brothers and lots of others had been ripping off one of the drinks vans and drinking free all night. Other people did bush missions and got into the winery/venue for free, but it was a big trek. It sucked, bad night. None of the New Years' ever measured up to that first one.
In our early 20s we drifted away from surfing. I travelled a lot, and when home we were interested in nightlife and various unsavoury vices that heavily affected your health. It was a big mistake, huge waste of time and money (and health). Maybe my biggest regret in life. Most of the local kids don't surf any more. I know one guy who used to rip, and he's an alcoholic now and never goes in the water, hasn't for years. Another mate was heavily affected by speed and lost interest in the water and just became weird. Another mate met a Norwegian ex-Raunchy girl and moved to Norway. Some of my other mates have the means to surf again now, but perhaps not the desire. They get out occasionally. No skin off my nose, I don't want to encourage others in the water anyway. But don't do drugs, kids.
Back to surfing - I would go out at Bears and sometimes Snake and Danny (and less frequently Ant) would rock up. Sometimes they'd have a young guy with a funny name with them. He was one of the few Yallingup year-round locals like the Pattos, and had American parents or something. He ripped, and still does obviously.
Speaking of the Pattos, I remember when I started surfing and only Ant surfed. Jake and Danny rode boogers! Orange Morey boogers. I remember staying over their place and we'd head down to Cott on misty autumn mornings and Ant would rip already on his board and the other two were pretty good on boogers. Then they took up surfing too, at about 11 or 12, and it didn't take them long before Snacob was far surpassing what I'd ever achieve. They moved down south when I was about 15 and I only saw them occasionally after that.
I remember bush bashing with my mate with the Gracetown brothers and we picked a random track and after driving for ages near where the brothers supposedly had a "garden" we came out to a little creek and a little beach. Wow! Magical. It even had good surf. It wasn't until we got closer down an overgrown walking track that we realised there was a decent road and carpark on the other side. We'd found Redgate, our first time there.
I remember finding the Moses Rock waterfall the first time. Nice spot. And finding the back track in to the other side. And the little freshwater lake at Honeycombs. It's pretty wrong nowadays, at least it was about 10 years ago the last time I visited. Possibly due to my mate and others like him who took a dump on the shore and then washed his arse in the water. Dirty bugger.
I remember going to Moses one day and there was this guy ripping it up on his backhand, way down the cliff out of sight. Then he came in and up the path and it was Tom Curren.
I used to love Inji Point, and we used to park on the dunes behind the point. They closed that track, although it appears it's open again these days? There were no houses in that bay back then. Not really many houses anywhere along the coast.
I've never surfed Surfer's Point. I kind of wish I had at least once, but there was always a less popular alternative and we kind of liked exploring. Plenty of exciting lefts with no people and Surfer's Point always had a reputation for crowds.
We used to play coins all the time as grommets, and watch surf vids. Mad Wax was my favourite early movie. I wish I still had a copy. Later on moved away from alcohol (at the ripe old age of about 15 
) and onto the other crap.
Regular trips down south spoiled me. I lost the desire to surf in Perth, which was my downfall. It obviously still doesn't compare, but if I stop here again now, it'll become harder to maintain condition and ability. I've lost a lot of it anyway. Sometimes I'll struggle all session like a kook. But sometimes I have a good day and it all clicks. Good waves help.
legion now your are really spinning me out. You stories of NY's and never surfing main break beacuse its too crowded and bears.......
that was me!!
This is an AWESOME thread! Is it just me or do you guys feel young again?.
Its blowing 30 kts onshore this afternoon , I think I might just paddle out
Sunday looks good
I met Tom Curren back then as well. A friend of mine was helping with an album they were recording in a natural ampitheatre near Yallingup. Met him at Windmills and he was very quiet but boy he could surf.
Legion , you must type fast cause those two stories would have taken me most of the day ! Too true tho , it does eat you up that those days will never be again , sad but as long as we can all physically get out there , i feel , theres nothing to complain about . I imagine the poor peple who haven,t had the days we all have had , just ya mates ,sick waves ,tired as , few largers then crash like you,ve never slept all week !
Mandurah used to be full of scary bogans. My mate's parents divorced years ago and his dad lived in Halls Head. He went to school there for a bit and got "in" with a few locals. But we'd still be scared to visit the area. They didn't like "metros".
Same as others on here, I remember staying at Golden Bay with some friends and surfing "Surf's Beach" by walking up the beach. No houses, no development, a few bush tracks.
Surfed Avalon and Gearies a few times when we had our licenses. I quite liked Avalon's long walls. Not the point, the wave in the middle of the bay. The bay looked different then. I think the beach went way further out, where there's a lagoon reef now. Maybe I'm mistaken. Now it's all new houses. A few years ago I was there and the graphs indicated 1.3m Cott swell. There were a few waves, but not really considering the swell. I went another time when it was 1.0m+ and same thing, the point was almost flat. It was a major disappointment and I won't go there again. Plus it's apparently a mal and SUP wave now.
When I was a grom we didn't like the "train boys". They'd rock up from ungodly suburbs and spend the day at the beach lighting fires in the limestone caves to stay warm down at Cove. They'd rock up with cheap supermarket surf gear, a backpack and a booger or board in a sock. But given what times are like now, they were 100% harmless. A few kooks not really getting in the way.
Never surfed Trigg or Scabs when I was young. You guys were way too far away, and too many bogans. Only went to the Lookout or Club A a few times. If we travelled for surf it was much further afield. Nowadays I'd much rather be a bogan than the apparent privileged middle-classian that I am. I don't like even saying what suburb I come from and always have lived in. It's got no soul any more, a shadow of the character it once had. I regularly travel to surf, I'll gladly drive for longer than I surf. Quality is everything (within reason). The only thing is, it's a lonely, expensive passion. I've rung mates a few times to share diesel money and conversation but they're too busy doing a pergola or tiling or whatever else homeowners have to do (like me on weekends). Lucky I like solo missions.
It's funny the feeling I get when I rock up at a place, even when I'm not a regular or local. I paddle out and within 5min feel like I own the place. And then my hackles rise when others rock up to the carpark in a group, or when a group want to hassle me.
It's also funny how even in the middle of the big city on a good day, there are places I know where I can get a good wave with no-one anywhere near me. Even on a weekend. Not all the time, but often enough in winter. Those sessions are fun. I also like the ones when it's crowded, but you find a little niche in between the crowd where for whatever reason you can pick off wave after wave to your heart's content.
I like the feeling of pissing in your wettie, even the new watertight ones (well, OK, it sucks in the new ones but what can you do) and the warm flush you get on a cold day. I like when you surf near your house and you can go home in your wettie on a winter's day and stand for like 30min under a scalding hot shower, slowly defrosting your numb feet.
I like the adrenalin rush when a cleanup set approaches and you're not sure if you're going to make it under it and you scramble for the horizon, and the shaky feeling after you make it.
I hate the feeling of almost drowning, seems to happen far too often. At Kearnsy's the reef seems to suck me down, down, down on an all-too-frequent basis. Last session it happened twice, both times after I got burned by dropper-inners.
I like pigging out on absolute crap food after a big session, but feeling like you're justified and can eat what you want. And how well you sleep after a big day.
I love how you can have a bad session, but one good turn, one good move makes it a great session.
Was a well known W.A pro surfer who put that keg thru windscreen , no names ! Was front line joining in the fun , or so it seemed back then. Saw one mate the next day who had copped a few belts from baton , was a few shades of black !
