Happy Birthday to us, Happy Birthday to us!

We turn one today!

Millerslocal turns ONE today. Pretty cool huh. Can't quite believe this all started just a year ago. What began as just a whimsical idea of having a lil homemade site with a coupla pic's plakked up on it now and again morphed into what it is today - which I hope you'll agree is a pretty fun site that keeps peeps up to date on whassup in the PE surf scene.

Can't say I had any idea of the amount of time and work this would entail (specially seeing as I have a real job and this just has to squeeze into free time), but I love every minute of it. There's also plenty of others peeps that have helped grow the site to what it is today. Special thanks to Ang, who was Millerslocal's first contributing photag - standing on that pipe day in and out to bring us great shots. Keep at it Ang, you'll get your name in lights one day! Also props to Big Dave from Surf Centre, who puts up regular prizes, and Daryl from KFC who feeds the photags.

Extra special thanks to my ever patient husband who puts up with me being stuck behind the computer updating the site after hours. We just had our 6 year anniversary yesterday - best husband in the world! Love ya!

Since our humble beginnings we've grown to having a dedicated core of photags that send us regular shots come rain or shine. Big pat on the back to guys like Luc, Dirk, Stan, Zane, Nick, Jono, Kody, Ang & Josh for keeping the photo's coming in. Also great to now have some video guys like Tertio, Tom, James, Josh and Jean starting to capture the action. Who knows, maybe we get an Innersection outta PE one day...

What's really cool is that all this coverage seems to be getting the best out of the guys in the water. The ou's are surfing incredibly these days, and the standard of surfing really seems on the up. Let's hope that we continue to get better coverage in the surf mags - cos now they are at last starting to realise that we do have good waves n good surfers down here. We used to be the ugly step-child til recently but at last they realising we're a force to be reckoned with. Be cool to see more of the guys picking up sponsors cos of the increased exposure. 

Also really nice to feel a lekker vibe in the water these days - largely due to the effort of the CYOH guys in getting the whole community spirit thing going. Let's keep building on that - the friendly city has it's friendly rep to live up too (we sure have no problem in living up to the "windy city" tag!) So much more fun to have a sesh where the ou's are chatting n hooting for each other & keeping some line-up etiquette, than trying to snake n hassle each other bedonderd.

Shew, what did I learn this year? Running a website takes LANK time and effort; I suck with names, sorry if I ID you wrong in a shot; the sun rises in the wrong place for morning shoots; it costs a shitload of money - I've dropped the cash equivalent of a small new car to buy all my camera/video/computer/software stuff (presently have only moths left in my bank account!); some people have no sense of humour - such is life; John still stands in the car park; and....

We have the most amazing surf community in South Africa - shot ou's, you the best! Local is lekker!

Bring on year 2......