By PHIL JARRATT
MORE than 40 years ago I spent an autumn season free-camping on the beach at Peniche in Portugal, only a few hundred metres north of what is now called Supertubos, where the battle for surfing’s professional world title played out this week, so I know only too well the impact it can have on your psyche when the skies go leaden and the wind howls onshore.
It’s not the fault of the pleasant fishing port of Peniche, rather that its swell magnet position jutting out into the Atlantic creates extremes in weather, and when it gets nasty, it really gets nasty. Until the Moche Rip Curl Pro resumed last Sunday, the world’s best surfers had had almost a week of atrocious conditions. Back in my day when this happened, we’d forget about surfing and head for the soccer game at Madame Sirly’s quaint little bar at the southern end of the port, where we’d play world cup marathons against the local fishermen and pig out on grilled sardines and slug down cheap rose out of a plastic bottle.
These days when it gets nasty the surfers go slab-hunting at mysterious rock ledge breaks that we didn’t even know existed, looking for the biggest, ugliest, thickest monster waves they can find. That’s what happened last week when big wave tour commissioner Peter Mel took John-John Florence out on a windswept 15-foot day at a break called Popua. Although Brazil’s Gabriel Medina, not J-Flo, is the young gun on the brink of this year’s world title (the first ever for Brazil), it is Florence from Hawaii who is widely regarded as the best surfer in the world right now, so even though he only made a few big drops at Popua, the session was all over social media and the websites within hours.
The very next day, no doubt having taken note of all the fuss, John-John’s mentor, Kelly Slater, 22 years his senior and the oldest guy on tour by a country mile, paddled out at Supertubos on another ugly, onshore day, the water the colour of mud, and punted a massive aerial manoeuvre that broke new ground for rotations. Some people were calling it a 720 degree air (Kelly himself claimed it a 810) but when cooler heads analysed the video coverage it was agreed that it was probably a 540 degree, or one and a half rotation air. Still a first for the 11-times world champion who was sitting at number two in the world at the time, with an outside chance of claiming another world title.
Always the most ferocious competitor, Slater used his post-punt interview to chuck one up his young rival. “The waves are great for airs,” he said.
“So where’s John-John? Why isn’t he out there? What’s he doing? Sitting at home editing videos of himself?” Ouch. The champ signed off chuckling, knowing he’d put it out there that his era was not quite over just yet. The kids have got time on their side. He’s not going to make it easy for him.
Sponsors wanted
The Noosa Festival of Surfing 2015, presented by Cricks Noosa, is taking shape as one of the best ever, with major sponsors like Cricks, Jeep, PJ Burns, VetShopAustralia, Golden Breed and Classic Malibu already signed, along with huge support from Tourism Noosa and Tourism and Events Queensland, and the Southern Oscillation tracker starting to indicate a good season for Coral Sea swells.
But we still have several high profile events without sponsors, and with more than four months to run pre-event, this represents a great opportunity for cost-effective marketing right through the summer. If you’re thinking about getting involved in the world’s biggest surfing event (with more than 500 entries from more than a dozen countries), don’t delay. Give me a call on 0400 118045, or festival manager Sam on 0439 666 172, and let us start promoting your business now.
And speaking of the surf festival, we’ve just received funding (from Tourism Noosa and Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd) to enable us to complete a made-for-TV documentary called “8 Days of Pure Stoke”, the story not just of the festival’s rich history but of Noosa and the Sunshine Coast as a world class surfing destination. I’ll be working hard with Panga Productions over the next month or so in the hope that we can get it completed before Christmas.
FOOTNOTE: Last week’s amazing photograph of the memorial paddle-out for surfer Jack Cranstoun was uncredited. It was the work of Dave Gleeson of surfshotsnoosa.com, whose online gallery is well worth a look.
