Harry x Harry

Word on the coconut telegraph is that these fellas bringing their cheeky irreverence to the tandem event last week at Noosa were Harry Bieden and Harry Bryant.
Whoever they were, they did it skilfully, wearing shoes and sox and other fashion accessories in the lineup, oblivious to the grace displayed by their competition.

Quote Week - 5

"A ship in port 

is safe

but that is not 

what ships 

are built for".

Anon

Backhand

Monochrome Monday (lite)

Grain

Salt Therapy

There's another "salt therapy" in town and it doesn't involve waxing up a board or cramming feet into flippers (fins).

It's the salt cave, where you hang out in a salt laden room, like a salt mine, for an hour after paying $50AU. 

I haven't tried it. But if I was going to I'd over to the team at Salt Caves in Mooloolaba.

Monochrome Monday (excuses)

Excuses.

We can all dig up a million of them.

Surf's too flat.

Too crowded.

Too choppy.

Too sharky.

Too hungover / ripped/ unfit.

And doing nothing gets easier.
And easier.
Until watching others becomes the norm.

Was a bit like that yesterday.

Bit shabby.

But we both made a BIG effort.

Got out and about.

Ended up shooting some keepers.

Eating some great food.

And running into old fiends.

Stoked.

Song without a name

Body surf

Surf board

or

air matt

 

 Have a great weekend in your loggerhood.

Neologism

I'm no linguistics guru, but I know a good neologism (aka homemade word or phrase) when I invent one.
The Loggerhood.
You read it here first.
No, it's not copyrighted, so feel free to repeat it in conversations post surf until it laps the world and I hear a stranger using it someday.

The Loggerhood is my freshly minted term to:
1 describe the great community of surfers of logs
2 describe the geographical hangout for said surfers and
3 also be used as a G rated  exclamation of shock eg like when I almost stepped on a venomous red bellied black snake last night while jogging. I could have said "what the logger hood!!!!".
I hadn't invented the term at that point so I cursed in a most politically-incorrect manner.
I also cursed the ungrateful cyclists coming towards me on that concrete path with their 30000000 kilowatt retina-destroying headlamps who not only didn't say "thanks" when I alerted them to another snake (taipan maybe) seen earlier further along the path, but failed to warn me of that pretty, yet venomous reptilian ahead of me. That's not how one behaves in The Loggerhood.

Today's relatively inane post is for polite, erudite surfers everywhere - one's like Phil, my Maldivian shipmate (above and below) and Bec who's part of the younger loggerhood that will drop in, turn off and tune in at Byron Surf Festival this weekend, where all manner of neologists, musicologists, surfologists, sociologists, scientists and scenesters will converge.
I hope somebody gawps "what the logger hood?".

Wet Holga

If my cheap plastic Holga 

120 film camera could swim, 

I'd take photos like this.

In the mean time, 

there's Photoshop and 

my imagination.

Have a wet and 

waxy weekend.

Monochrome Monday (Name Withheld)

Got this message from a mate as I nursed a chest cold which is keeping me out of the water

"Got a good little wave at NAME WITHHELD yesterday morning 2-3 ft wrapping around the point and offshore really long rides had to go in and walk back up the point rather than paddle back I was the only one out for about half an hour then two guys on a yacht pulled up and came over on SUPs I felt a little better then as the odds of me being taken by a great white decreased with two others out in the water - will post some pics when I get home"

Tree

Deep Winter Six

mmmmm

Goals

"You are never too old

to set another goal

or dream a new dream"

C S Lewis

Friends x Zeppelin

I'm slowly getting my act together as dawn creeps over the horizon to my right. Just me and the stars and the coffee percolator. I'm listening to "Friends" by Led Zeppelin, a track they rarely played live. As a guitar puppy, I find the lyrics and open C-6 tuning captivating.

I can't even begin to conceptualise a life devoid of friends like my mates Mark above and Phil below, who took me to the Maldives last year. They hoot at my poor attempts to ride a longboard. (Being a shortboarder who occasionally goes long when the waves demand it). They laugh at my anecdotes, even though I have probably repeated the same yarns a few times during our decades together. They lift me up and point me at the light when all looks grim. BIG Thanks. You are my heroes!

"Bright light almost blinding, 

black night still there shining,
I can't stop, keep on climbing, 

looking for what I knew. "

from Friends by Led Zeppelin 1970

Monochrome Monday (watered down wood)

This young fella actually ran over the top of me. Glad I wearing my helmet. Even gladder there's no fins on those wooden things.

"Is that me?"

As the dude with the camera, I often get asked, when it comes to the show and tell stage of surf imagery, "Is that me?" or "Did you get that tube of mine?" or "God, I look like kook!"

After decades of surfing I had one colour snap of me cutting back at Noosa on a MP inspired pintail flyer back in the 70's. When it's good, nobody wants to shoot.

Now, thanks to my mate Rimmo, I have a couple of happy snaps from  a small session at Cokes (or in my case Kooks). Oh the temptation to make the wave more heroic and my good self more buff using Photoshop. But no, I don't have enough time! So here they are, sensible equatorial sun gear and all. The board is a four channel Simon Jones "Mr Freedom", which is brilliant.

Monochrome Monday (Maldivians)

A couple of shots from last weekend's catchup slide night (well, using a data projector) with my shipmates from the 2011 Maldives boat trip.

BIG Thanks to our hosts Jackie, Phil, Matt and Tim.

And not forgetting she with the Boadicea-like leadership qualities critical to any campaign involving the organisation of diverse and disorganised "talent" - Lynette Lori-Ling. BIG thanks for getting us all there (and back)!