The week that was

Holy cow, Jbay went off it's pip for the final day of the JBay Open. Absolutely cranking would be an understatement! You know when Millers is 6ft then Jbay is gang-buster. Mick Fanning took the title from good mate Parko, and was frothing like a grommet about it. Wilko & Owen surfed like men possessed to get into the semi's, but it was experience that won over youthful enthusiasm. For the full wrap on the final day of competition check the Comp News blog.

© Zane Hobson

Plenty of entries into the ML Fantasy Surfer comp, and lots of guys backed Mick for the win. All the correct entries got popped into Random.org...and it spat out Kyle Rubin as the winner. Kyle scores a lekker hamper valued at R1600 from Billabong. Schweeeet!

Pretty much the whole of PE's surfing community made it out to Jbay to watch the finals ('cept me who was on a plane to the Maldives!) Guys grabbed some shots of their heroes, with their heroes, and grabbing a feel of their hero's boards!

Tracey Admiral snapped a pic of a happy Mick

The ou on the right is Richard von Wildemann, the guy on the left is apparently quite famous!

Jakes' micro-grom CJ sussing out Parko's rails

There were plenty locals lined up at the keyhole just waiting for the final horn to blow so they could get out there and charge the huge surf. Classic pic taken by Robbie Irlam.

Although Jbay had laid low swell wise until day of the final dawned, there was still plenty of action all week despite the comp being on hold. The Oakley X-Over Challenge took to the water at Lower Point. In the mix were some of the rugby players - and rumour has it they were kakking themselves! Sharks shouldn't be scared of sharks! Jordy took the win, followed by Biker Greg Minaar and Bob Skinstad for 3rd.

Butch getting a tow out © Kolesky

John Smit with his "shortboard" © Robbie Irlam

Spotted on the beach was Oakley team manager Seth Hulley and team rider Jordy Smith having a bit of a tactical discussion whilst Jordy walked his dawg. Good to have a dawg, but yrrr, that's a fluff-ball of note!

Jordy's four-legged fluff ball - maybe even called Fifi?? © Robbie Irlam

Plenty of comps going down, and PE local Tom Collins won himself an entry to the Red Bull party, and bumped into quite a famous surfer whilst he was there. Always cool to meet the pro's, specially a legend Saffa like Jordy.

An added bonus of the pro-circus being in town is that there are camera's everywhere - and if you hit the water there's a good chance of you scoring a shot. Like Billabong's Josh Enslin, who got a sneaky Boneyards sesh in and got some clicks from Spex.

Josh Enslin @ Boneyards © Sasha Specker

Autograph hunters were in 7th heaven. Gino Fabbri has a conundrum now, cos his lightie has got a great collection of scribbles on his board now, and obviously would like to keep em. Reckon Gino should just give this a coat of varnish and stick it up and in bar and buy the grom another stick!

Luckily the wildlife has been limiting itself to the PE area for the time being. A big family of Orca's were spotted by Raggy Charters in the Reserve during the week. These things have massive fins, and will be sure to get your heart pumping if you spot 'em. Almost as much as spotting a white, which Jason Brown saw there yesterday.

© Raggy Charters

The locals at JBay © Jim Gibson

Brad Beck continues to get barreled off his pip whilst on the job as a surf guide in the Maldives. Hoping to bump into him and Hannah whilst we've over there for the next 2 weeks. Surf's been cranking there so here's holding thumbs it keeps doing just that!

Busy trying out my new Garmin Virb Elite. It's a lil waterproof action camera. Gotto say it's a helluva lot easier to operate than my GoPro. Far more intuitive. And it has a lil screen to navigate through all the menu's which helps heaps. Haven't had much time to play yet - but did pop it in the window to record a quick timelapse. Rather an arb sunset by PE standards of late, so plan to keep an eye out for one of those red sky spectaculars.
(make sure you view it in HD, so change the settings on your YouTube player accordingly. For the ballies - that means hit the cog thing on the bottom right & choose 720)