In the news...

The start of the week saw some pretty fun swell sneak into the bay. The charts didn't look like much but there were decent lil waves from Millers through to Rincon. Thankfully Thursday dawned flat, so everyone to get back to doing some work.

Bit & pieces of news for the week:

JBay & SF locals Dylan Lightfoot and Faye Zoetmulder are over in Aus at the moment competing in the opening leg of the 2014 WQS campaign which kicked off in Kangaroo land. Faye got knocked out early in her first comp cos the waves were basically non-existent and it was just a lotto as to whoever managed to catch something that resembled a wave would win the heat. Tough to travel halfway round the world and then get skunked by conditions. But Faye's one tough cookie and will no doubt bounce back in the next comp to kick butt.

Another St Francis local, Dale Staples, is also over in Aus competing, but was another victim of the minuscule surf in his first comp. Luckily the 6312 boys know which end of a fishing rod is up, and so if the surfs flat there're lines in the water.

Speaking about comps...good news is that the JBay Open has been upgraded to a 5A PST event for this year. It means the Juniors will get a shot at surfing the event as well. The main event of the Open will run from 16-20 July. Plenty else to do at the WinterFest. 

More good news....Dungeons gets included in the Big Wave World Tour for next year. So here's hoping Twig gets to win the inaugural event. It will run in the southern hemi big wave season, some time between April and August.

Mentioned that there was some super fun surf Mon through Wednesday this week. Even back of Pipe had some waves for Big Dave to go try out his new "shortboard". That being an 8ft 4inch thick mother that entailed having to glass to blanks together to get it to the right thickness. Seems to be working though, Big Dave is ripping. 

Spots west of PE have been throwing up some good 'un's as well. Word is that by Wednesday everyone was so surfed out that there were empty perfect lines running down the point and no-one on them! Luckily the huge trucks delivering wind turbine parts to the windfarm being built out on the Oyster Bay road have been snarling the traffic up nicely and keeping the crowds down. They're running at least 5 loads a day out there so be prepared to get stuck if you're trying to do a quick dash out there for a wave.

Stan the Man © Sarah Kennedy

Bit of a tight turn onto the dirt road to Oyster Bay just after the Krom Bridge © Clive Wright