The week that was

Massive swell klapped Indo this week. And tragedy came with it. A young Aussie surfer died whilst surfing Scar Reef, a heavy spot on Sumbawa, when he got smashed by a huge set. Friends hired a boat after he went missing and found his body washed up on the reef. RIP fellow wave rider.

Just to give you an idea of how big Indo was here's a shot of the pontoon at Lacerations getting taken out by a clean up set. It sits in a deep channel between the break and never see's as much as a ripple pass under it - and here it get's smoked by a monster. Reckon the ou's sitting chilling on it must have gone from chill mode to OMG mode fairly quickly!!

Not only is the Indian Ocean swell machine on maximum volume, the Pacific isn't far behind. Chopes is the centre of the action that side of the pond, with it claiming first blood of the season. Michel Bourez's bro Kevin did a over the falls face plant into the reef and got a few skull fractures and some reef tattoo's for his efforts.

The CT guys are all over there now as the Billabong Pro Tahiti is gonna start soon. Tiago Pires doing some equipment testing....looks like it's back to the drawing board....

Surf coach and local legend Hynsie had a knee op this week - wishing him well for a speedy recovering, and back on the beach coaching all our lighties again.

Work has started on the Boardwalk revamp. The old plastic walkway had become seriously crapped out and presented a danger to users. Injured my pride a while ago whilst going for a run - so busy checking out the surf at Pipe as I ran past failed to see the raised plank and went flying as I tripped over it. Fail.

The plan is to yank up the section of the walkway in the Pipe area and let the sand dunes recover. In about a year or so the municipality will look at replacing it. (Pic Mike Holmes EP Herald)

Plenty of wandering locals at the moment. Jaryd Mason ticked off a serious bucket list spot when he got to surf Pipe in Hawaii this week. A step up from the Pipe he'd been used to up til now. Slightly overhead and he reckoned he still got smashed by a few, just such a powerful wave.

JBay's Remi Peterson has been in France less than a week and has already collected enough travel stories to fill a book. Being on a Saffa budget meant he had to sleep rough in the sand-dunes, which was probably quite fun right up until the storm from hell broke out on top of him! Lightening struck within metres of him a few times and he got so drenched he had to get into his wetsuit to sit out the night as it was the driest thing he had! Here's a pre-storm shot.

Brad and Hannah still have to pinch themselves regularly to make sure they really are living the dream instead of just, well, dreaming it. One of the best season's in year's mean that most days at the office are filled with cooking waves. Get to meet a few interesting peeps along the way too - like Rasta, Sunny Garcia and Taylor Knox, who were all guests of Tropicsurf last week for the annual legends surf comp hosted off the Four Seasons Explorer.

The Hulett family from St Francis have made the trek halfway round the world to surf Fiji for the next month. They don't travel light - 2 surf-boards, 2 kite boards, 3 Stand up Paddleboards, three paddles, one boogie board and 2 airush kites! Try getting that through 45 hours of travel....

Looks like it's been worth the effort! Here's EP Junior surfer Crystal Hullet smashing a Swimming Pool's wall.

Local windsurfer, surfer and photographer Greg Betts (Action Exposed) landed himself a sweet gig as the official photag of a bunch of international windsurfing events in Mauritius. Not a shabby office for a week or two!

Bit of a purple blob forming off to the SW of Cape Town that had the big waves guys getting excited for a possible start of the Dungeons ASP Big Wave event. But it ended up being called off when the swell did a disappearing act. There is however still a chance of the event running right at the end of August, charts looking promising.

Pipe & Millers local Mauro Poggi had a bit of a scar with some serious skin cancer that he found he had just by sheer chance (full story here). Go get those moles and mossies checked regularly. 

Local SUP rider and docter Michael Klos sent me a clever lil mnemonic to remember to know what moles/freckles to worry about. It's as simple as ABCDE:

A- Asymmetry: Normal moles or freckles are completely symmetrical. If you were to draw a line through a normal spot, you would have two symmetrical halves. In cases of skin cancer, spots will not look the same on both sides.
B- Border: A mole or spot with blurry and/or jagged edges.
C- Color: A mole that is more than one hue is suspicious and needs to be evaluated by a doctor. Normal spots are usually one color. This can include lightening or darkening of the mole.
D- Diameter: If it is larger than a pencil eraser (about 5mm), it needs to be examined by a doctor. This is includes areas that do not have any other abnormalities (color, border, asymmetry).
E- Elevation: Elevation means the mole is raised above the surface and has an uneven surface.

So get someone to check out ya out and if anything looks suspicious rather be safe than sorry and head to the doc for a check. Remember to lather on that sunscreen, cos if world champs can wear it, so can you....

Been really flat this week so the guys have been doing plenty of slacklining. So impressed with what they're able to do on a thin bit of webbing strung out between 2 tree's. Must be awesome balance training for surfing.

Local photag Luc Hosten is having to shoot other things that move in the absence of any decent surf. Here he is with some of the local wildlife. He decided the penguin looked more interesting upside down.....

In the absence of much surf there's been plenty skate action in town. The Boogaloo's Skateboarding Tour of Hope went down at the King's Beach skatepark on Saturday; then Sunday saw a Sector 9 Poker Run cruising down the beachfront in some seriously summer weather. Josh Saunders was stoked to win the Sector 9 skateboard with his set of four 5's.

Keep those wheels greased cos not a helluva lot on the charts for this week either - so going to have to get your glide on the tar not in the water.

© Peter Coffey

© Koffie Jacobs