JULY
My first impression of Gordon Woods, who died aged 98, was that he was a thorough gentleman. That was in 1965, when Gordon would have been 40 – around the same age my kids are now – and I felt the same about the man all the years I knew him, right into his nineties. The most senior of the “Brookvale Six” who dominated the emerging surfboard industry through the 1960s, Woodsy started building hollow okanuis in 1956, and a few years later was mentoring both Midget Farrelly and Nat Young.
After a slow start Jeffreys Bay produced epic conditions for the Billabong Pro on
Wednesday 19 July, with waves, weather and performances by the best surfers in the world in perfect alignment. Aussies Ethan Ewing and Molly Picklum bowed out in the finals to a rampaging Filipe Toledo and Lakey Peterson respectively.
AUGUST
Noosa longboarders absolutely blitzed the field at the Australian titles at Port Macquarie, with wunderkind Landen Smales leading the way. Queensland achieved a clean sweep of the longboard and logger divisions at the Australian Surf Championships. Landen Smales won the Open Men’s Logger and Under 18 Junior Men’s Logger divisions, while Kirra Molnar won both open women’s longboard and logger as well.
It wasn’t vintage Chopes for the Tahiti Pro, that’s for sure, but it had enough grunt for two days for the best tube riders and strategists on the planet to shine. The new Gabe Medina charmed everyone in his post-heat interviews and baffled competitors with his uncanny ability to thread a line through closeout barrels, only to be brought down in the final by an all-in Jack Robbo. Exciting stuff, which saw our Jack scrape into September’s finals at Trestles and gain Olympic selection for next year.
SEPTEMBER
A lot has been written about the untimely demise of Jimmy Buffett, the poet of the common man and one of the world’s leading surfboard collectors. Although he wrote the soundtrack of mine and many other lives I’ll always regret missing him live by a whisker on two occasions. The first was in 1986 when Jimmy did an unannounced warm-up set at Moby Dick’s at Whale Beach. While I was away on an assignment, my wife sucked on margaritas and danced the night away. The second was in 2014 when in Noosa I learned that Jimmy would take to the beach stage at the Quiksilver Pro at Snapper Rocks in less than an hour, meaning I had to miss another memorable impromptu concert, seen in this shot with Jimmy supported by Kelly Slater and Steph Gilmore.
Meanwhile, Filipe Toledo and Caroline Marks took out the WSL championship tour finals at Lowers from Ethan Ewing and Carissa Moore.
OCTOBER
Good fortune shone on three nude swimmers at Alexandria Bay in the form of a visiting Argentinian lifeguard named Mica Guacci, those ubiquitous Smales brothers, Kaiden and Landen, and Noosa Heads lifeguard Tim Mulder. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day at A-Bay, so despite the heavy swell and treacherous rips our trio whipped off their threads and jumped in.
Fortunately Mica, 31, who had decided to stay out of the waves, spotted the people in distress and dived in after them, telling her friend to run and find surfers with boards. Within 15 minutes the friend had found the Smales boys at the other end of the beach and they paddled out to help Mica keep the swimmers safe until lifeguard Tim arrived on a jet ski. A happy ending but the message is clear: A-Bay is unpatrolled and often dangerous. Give the gonads an airing by all means if you must, but don’t go in the water unless you know what you’re doing.
Heavy fog disrupted the start of the WSL Longboard world finals day at Malibu, but it wasn’t going to stop veteran Hawaiian stylist and shaper Kai Sallas from taking his first world title at age 42, after a hard-fought three-set final from Kaniela Stewart who is half his age. In the women’s title battle, Californian Soleil Errico claimed back to back world titles at her home break of Malibu after overcoming Hawaii’s Kelis Kaleopa’a in straight sets.
While no Australian women made the final eight to contest the championships, Noosa-based Hawaiian Mason Schremmer gave us plenty to be proud of, leapfrogging competitors with a classy display to move from eighth to fifth in the world in 2023.
NOVEMBER
After more than a year of a wartime surfing ban, Odesa local and president of the Ukrainian Surfing Federation Vasiliy Kordysh and a handful of mates tracked the arrival of an early winter swell, decided enough was enough and paddled out. So how was the long-awaited session? Said Vasiliy: “It was amazing. For some moments I felt like the war wasn’t happening.”
Australia’s Laura Enever, one-time junior champion, surf glamour queen and now World Surf League commentator and big wave guru, is a woman of considerable achievement and a big fan base, but for the 31-year-old the champagne lost its fizz pretty quickly when her Guinness World Record for “the largest paddle-in wave ever ridden by a female” was called into question by surfing’s rampant blogosphere. Something to do with the fact she didn’t complete the wave. But she made an incredible drop, so leave her alone!
DECEMBER
Finals day at the ISA World Junior Championships at Praia da Macumba, Brazil was not exactly a triumphant one for Australia’s Team Irukandjis, dropping from first to fourth on the teams ladder to secure a copper medal. And it was a disappointing personal finish for Noosa’s Coco Cairns, who was in the running for the world title but narrowly missed the podium to finish seventh and Australia’s second highest placing over all divisions. But for one Aussie it was a glory day, no doubt the first of many to come. Pocket rocket Sierra Kerr won gold in the Girls Under 16 division with flawless surfing in clean but small conditions, cementing her reputation as the world’s fastest-rising junior star in all conditions.
