Although the weather could have been kinder, it was wonderful to see the Noosa Festival of Surfing get underway last weekend in the best conditions seen at First Point for the event since 2019.
Once upon a time you could put your house on a Coral Sea low forming offshore in early March and sending endless days of long, tapered swells into Laguna Bay to peel off the rocky foreshore at First Point in precision, creating some of the best longboard waves in the world for the festival. In the ‘20s climate change has made our swell season far less predictable, and a record accumulation of sand after a prolonged lack of cyclonic activity has robbed us of those perfect peelers, substituting a wider and somewhat fickle sand bank.
But last weekend, as we waded through the junior heats and numerous novelty events, a curious thing started to happen. For this old festival competitor and one-time administrator, it was like déjà vu all over again! It wasn’t quite First Point but the growing swell was sending clean lines into the bay, and if you chose the right one, you could ride it from point to beach, just like the old days.
Sunday’s junior finals clearly tested some of the younger competitors, copping a few sets on the head as the tide retreated, but there were some standout performances. In the girls Under 15, Cash Hoover combo-ed the field to win the title convincingly, while in the U-15 boys, Noosa’s Lennix Currie was equally convincing, taking the event from beach-mate Ryder Worthington with 10-year-old super grom Hunter Williams third. Malia Ilagan took out the girls U-18 from Mia Waite, while in the U-18 boys Lennix Currie beat Arthur Randell to make it a clean sweep.
I had a bit to do with the creation of Noosa’s noserider event a quarter century ago, so I’m always happy to see it run at First Point which is made for it, although with flexibility in the schedule, it would have been nice to see the invitees given a bit more tide underneath their dancing feet. Still, a select group of the world’s best put on an amazing display of tip time control with flourishes last Sunday afternoon. It’s too bad the Sahara Desert on Main Beach means you can’t watch low tide surfing from the beach bar because these were the kind of jaw-drop performances that benefit from a beer or two.
It was great to see old stagers and mates Jye Lee and Jared Mell sharing waves and draping heels, but when it got to the pointy end of the Laguna Bay Longboards Noserider Invitational, we had a final of three local guys and a Californian, a local gal and her Californian counterpart. Putting the ladies first, Noosa’s Kirra Molnar and Avalon Gall put on an exquisite display of noseriding with grace and flow, while locals Clinton Guest and Bowie Pollard used a combination of local knowledge and superior weight distribution to clock some amazing times.
But in the end it got down to Noosa’s 2022 world longboard champ and multiple festival champ Harrison Roach and some amazing soul arch 10s and delicate dances, against Kaimana Takyama’s dexterity on the wide-tailed model designed by his dad. And Kai got the well-deserved win.
As we go to press early week, the swell is pumping and looks like hanging in all week, as does your correspondent, if only by a slender thread in one of the (very) senior divisions. We’ll have a full wrap on the surf festival in Life of Brine next week.
Stop picking on Peniche!
The surf commentariat has been having a grand old time rubbishing this week’s WSL world tour event in Peniche, Portugal, because, well, it’s been cold, stormy and the surf has been pretty much rubbish, while South East Queensland, particularly Burleigh for the teams last weekend, has been going off.
The argument goes that no one wants to be in Portugal in March, so put the Snapper Rocks Pro back on the tour and let the surfers make the short hop across the Pacific from the Hawaiian events to surf in a similar climate. It makes some sense. The Peniche event used to run in October, when Atlantic swells are more predictable and generally cleaner, and the water is warmer, and it fit into the schedule next to France, as it should. The other argument is that Peniche’s Supertubos is not a world class wave.
It can be, but not that often. I first surfed it in 1973 when it was called Sardines for the sardine processing factory on the dune where the contest venue is now, that leaked a river of blood into the break, making it a little spooky, but fun. The last time I was there, in 2018, I rode a longboard at Mohle Leste, next to the harbour break-wall where we used to free-camp all those years ago, and where they held the comp out of the wind the other day, to more howls of derision.
In at least a dozen visits over 50 years, I’ve seen Peniche morph from a little fishing village to the surf school epicentre of Europe, but I still love its old world charm, and I’d hate to see it disappear from pro surfing.
Oh, and for the record, as I write, we only have two Aussies left in the draw – Tyler and Ethan.
