By Phil Jarratt
Even though too much travel is never enough, recently back from Mexico with a lot of work to catch up on, I had to forego the Deus Nine Foot and Single party comp in Bali last weekend, and wasn’t that a mistake!
Although I wouldn’t have been relishing Friday’s out-of-control wash-throughs at the Rivermouth, the surf cleaned up nicely (that’s surface conditions, not water quality, I hasten to add) for the weekend with some stellar performances and broken boards in challenging waves. Sunny Coaster Bowie Pollard warmed up with some barrels on the Bukit peninsula in the days before and blitzed the first round at Canggu, only to crease his board in the second round and bow out.
The Noosa crew had better luck, with Emily Everywhere (err, Lethbridge that is) putting in another strong performance, and usual suspects Harrison Roach and Matt Cuddihy in the men’s final with fellow Aussies Kai Ellice-Flint and Jack Lynch.
Typically, my deadline for this column came and went while I waited for the Deus crew to get over their presso party hangovers and post the results. Hasn’t happened, but I can tell off the record that Harry Roach beat Kai Ellice-Flint in the men’s.
The Nine Foot and Single is always a hoot, and I don’t know what I was thinking, passing this one up. Oh well, always next year. And I was in good company on the absentee list, with former world champ Josh Constable passing in favour of taking up his invitation to the big money Surf Relik Invitational in Malibu, California, which kicks off this week. Go hard, big fella!
Class reunion
While the surf was pumping in Bali last week, I was groveling in ankle-snapping shorebreaks on our open beaches. I wouldn’t normally have bothered, but an old schoolmate and surfing buddy was making his first visit to Noosa, so we were on the dawn patrol every day, wishing and hoping.
And I have to say that making the effort was worth it, even if the gutless little waves weren’t. I guess we get blasé, here in paradise. It takes a visitor to remind you what a pleasure it is to just paddle out with the early sun sparkling on crystal clear water, schools of fish splashing just beyond the break, hardly a soul in the water from Sunshine to Castaways, the odd fisherman or dog-walker on the tideline, the occasional car noise from the David Low Way barely enough to disturb the reverie. Ah, Noosa, you’re pretty damn special.
We paddled around and managed to find enough green face to say we’d done it, and over coffees and beers as the days progressed, we filled in the missing decades, mindful that in a few short months it will be 50 years since we walked out the gates of the alma mater, wedged between the beach breaks where we learnt to surf and the coal-rich Illawarra escarpment, to start our real lives.
So should we have a big reunion, get the old crew back together? Well, we were both at the only class of ’69 get-together there’s ever been, and we decided back then, 30 years ago, that we didn’t have a lot in common with many of the balding strangers milling around the barbeque.
So we decided nah, we’d already had it, right there in the lineup at Castaways. Just us on our surfboards and the fish and the seabirds, and that’ll do nicely until the next time.
Eco Check moves up a gear
Tourism Noosa’s Eco Check program has been around for a few years now, encouraging local businesses to go the extra yard or two to help the environment, but I hadn’t realized just how deeply it had penetrated the corporate planning of local biz, from the smallest operators to the biggest.
I found this out last week when I dropped into the Boathouse for the launch of the upgraded Noosa Eco Check 2.0. Apart from the sheer weight of numbers of local entrepreneurs and operators who are taking sustainability seriously, what really impressed me was the spirit present in the room – a real and palpable sense of shared achievement, that as a community we were actually getting somewhere.
I was reminded of that the next day, when I listened to Sophie Taylor-Price, Bob Hawke’s granddaughter, deliver a moving eulogy for her “Pop”, who she said had gone to his grave feeling profound regret at Australia’s collective failure to take action on climate change.
Well, in Noosa we are taking collective action, even if it’s still only baby steps. So well done, Isa Grube and the TN team. Further info at www.noosaecocheck.com.au
FOOTNOTE: In the spirit of recycling, we’re having a garage sale this Saturday, with all kinds of surf art, books, magazines and memorabilia, plus fabrics, cushion covers and clothing from around the world on offer at silly prices. From 8am at 2/12 William Street, Noosaville.
