The week that was...

Alex van Rijswijck © Kody McGregor

Kody McGregor Photography has been scoring some great shots of local lighties lately. Great to see our kids are blowing up whilst they're growing up. 

Peter Coffey © Kody McGregor

Gino Fabbri is still frothing on the epic barrel he scored at Millers weekend before last, so much so he decided to immortalize his froth in froth - with this cool coffee art impression. Just gotto love that styling stance...even looks like he's unweighted his front foot and is stalling. Impressive detail! He did get called out by Merv for forgetting to include his hat - so rectified matters with a second cuppa.

Quite an interesting week on the WSL (and no, it still does not roll off the tongue like ASP). Had zippo to do with the surfing  - altho that wasn't half-bad, and a whole lot more to do with the sideshows. Eleven lay days and the promise of pumping cyclone swell due to arrive in the extended waiting period had raised the level of expectation. However, the surf gods decided to pull a middle finger at the comp directors and the last day dawned with......crap surf. 

So the ou's were a lil testy about being over-sold and under-delivered on, not that anyone can order waves on whim. Nonetheless, a few went into brain-melt mode and kept us entertained. Freddy P was so gatvol he foam bounced his way towards the rocks and then chop-hoped up onto one. Slater went and fetched a groveller midway through his heat, then wouldn't catch a wave on it. And finally Gabe stepped up to add the icing to the cake.

He threw a proper wobbly after getting called on an interference that was neither here nor there, told Micro he'd teach him a lesson if he told him to F*** off again, and then told the comp director he'd boggered up. Pretty good effort in how to piss off a multitude of peeps in just a short one-minute interview. Our new world champ is still a wee bit wet behind the ears, and no doubt his publicity machine will do their best damage control. Still, far more interesting to see some passion and emotion methinks. Maybe Gabe is surfing's answer to John McEnroe? Long may it continue!

Some happy tuxedo guys got released on Sunday. Always great to see the penguins get returned to the sea - SAMREC does an awesome job of cleaning up and fixing up these cute lil dudes. An easy way to help them out is to take your lighties down to watch the penguin releases - the R25/adult and R15/kid fee goes towards raising much needed funds for SAMREC to enable them to continue with their vital work. SAMREC are located just inside Cape Recife, go give their Facebook page a Like to stay up-to-date on penguin releases dates/times....and see plenty of Luc Hosten's lekker shots of the cute critters.

Outta here! © Luc Hosten

Brad Beck & Hannah Bing are taking a break from tropical perfection for a coupla weeks and headed home for the first time in 9 months after starting their surf coaching stint in the Maldives. Brad got a bit of a shock re-introduction to local surf - having to don full rubber head to toe tobe able to handle the ice-cream headache water that had come into the bay at Seals early in the week. Not so easy after being in baggies 9 months.

The local JBay lighties have also been blowing up. Dylan Lightfoot is up in Ballito at the moment, and has been nailing some great shots - like this one from Greg Ewing.

Matt McGillivray was seen throwing buckets way beyond his weight-grade recently. That's a real AI looking spray he's got going there. Nicely captured by Robbie Irlam.

Don't forget to pop in to your local surf shop to grab the latest Zigzag. Cos you score a free block of wax and a key-ring. You don't get the kiff freebies if you by it at the Spar or CNA....so surf shop or bust if you want the goodies. 

Speaking of kiff goodies, Peter Coffey earned himself a great haul from Billabong by correctly guessing the winner of the 2015 Quik Pro Gold Coast. Not many peeps picked Toledo, so your chances of being the lucky number drawn of those who did were gonna be good. Pete scores himself a lekker pair of Billabong boardies, TShirt, cap and slops. Make sure you enter the next ML Fantasy Surfer comp.