G-Land was showing some signs of the new swell upon my first surf check at 8am. A bit late you ask? Well I was up quite late last night organising the pool tournament, and after my big nap, I had to read till after midnight before I could get too sleep. By the way, Blacky won the pool tournament. The stakes were raised to Rp20,000 per entry, and this meant a jackpot of Rp400,000 from 20 guests and staff combined! Blacky won Rp300k for his win, while guest Jason narrowly lost, to take Rp100k for 2nd place.
Back to the surf check... 4ft on the sets with a definite thicker look to the swell. Super high period South West swell of 225 degrees on the charts today. 9am was reading 7ft @ 21sec, and by 3pm it was 8ft @ 20sec. Sure enough by early afternoon there were sets in the 6-8ft range. Some 10ft + sets broke on the bombie around 3, and washed all the way through to the Ledge even.
Tried my aluminium pole mount for the GoPro. Had to punch out of a Ledge wave that I accidently set up far too deep on my first wave, and hey presto! 4th pole to break in this past week of trying. So I used the remaining pole as a hand held stick. Paddling in with it in my teeth, and then putting it in my hand after take-off. A Bit sketchy but it worked. However the 2 best barrels I got, the camera didn't turn on for some reason. Arrrgghh...
There were some sick waves for the 12-3 session, and even afterwards with the outgoing tide there was the odd smoker here and there. A 1.7m high at 2pm put a perfect amount of water over the Ledge and Upper Money Trees section which was where all the swell was hitting once it picked up. Ohhhh... almost forgot to mention: Crowd factor? About 20 at most at any one time, and the water is pretty chilly, just right in my 2mm old steamer again.
A 6ft Barrel about to show me the power of its foamball
Frodo Congratulating Darren last night on making it into the semi-final, beating Boat Captain Allan (right)
