By PHIL JARRATT
SLOWLY but surely the tumult and the shouting starts to fade away. As I write it’s 36 hours since the 25th Laguna Real Estate Noosa Festival of Surfing concluded in great waves on First Point. The surf is still great, but every part of my body aches, the PA system is still pounding in my ears and I feel very, very old, so I’m sitting at my desk with one eye on the Quik Pro and one eye on the computer screen.
What a week we had! Too many highlights to squeeze into a single column, too many stellar performances to recount, too many tough slogs up and down the beach as super-high tides forced us to use the beaches at Noosa West. So I’m just going to focus on a couple of things that floated my boat.
One was the incredible camaraderie between surfers of 20 competing countries, spearheaded by the visit of the Peruvian cultural group over the first few days. Sponsored by the Noosa National Surfing Reserve and The Cove Noosa, the appearances by Huevito Ucanan, “king of the caballitos” were almost as well received as the VetShop surfing dogs! Riding his ancient design reed board, Huevito proved to be the consummate showman and crowd-pleaser.
Huevito, 1965 world champion Felipe Pomar (still a super-fit surfer at 72) and Carlos Antonio Ferrer were at the festival to represent the Huanchaco World Surfing Reserve in Peru, and, along with WSR chief executive Nik Strong-Cvetich and Gold Coast WSR chair Andrew McKinnon, to discuss with Noosa’s World Surf Reserve committee our application for the honour in 2018.
The convivial Peruvians set the tone for all the internationals to have a blast in Noosa, none more so that the smiling Hawaiian wahines, led by world champ Honolua Blomfield and the amazing Schremmer sisters. I love the attitude of all these kids, perhaps best demonstrated this year by nine-year-old Scarlett Schremmer surfing against girls six years older and absolutely shredding the biggest set wave that came through last Friday. The wave was about shoulder-high for most people: for little Scarlett it was double overhead!
Another highlight was the appearance of 2015 world adaptive champion Mark “Mono” Stewart, a salt of the earth kind of bloke from back of Byron whose positive attitude to adversity since losing a leg to cancer in his teens is something to marvel at, not to mention his incredible surfing ability. But Mono may have met his match in terms of positive attitude when Noosa Heads Surf Club’s Little Jo Power organised for him to share a few waves with young Rohan McDonald from the Sea Horse Nippers program.
Says Little Jo: “Rohan was born with no proper bone connection structure to his feet, which were also deformed. At 20 months old, his legs were amputated, one above the knee, the other below. He loves swimming and one day would love to surf. A true little champion!”
Sea Horse Nippers is run by the Noosa Surf Club for four consecutive Saturdays at the beginning and the end of the surf lifesaving season, a program designed for children with a disability to come along and have some fun on the beach with other kids with special needs, under the supervision of experienced lifesavers. For further details contact Steve Mawby (0422 625637).
FOOTNOTE: During the course of a busy week, Bob McTavish, Layne Beachley, Peter Townend and I found time to open “25 Years of Pure Stoke”, a fantastic exhibition that covers the history of the Noosa Festival and its predecessor, the Noosa Longboard Classic, put together by curator Nina Shadforth and her team at the Noosa Regional Art Gallery. The exhibition runs through to the end of April, so, as Molly says, do yourselves a favour!
