A few years old but never likely to date…

Check out my ad from Bong’s new “I Surf Because” campaign. We went to Bali just before I cut my foot open, got some sick waves and had a hell time. I like the idea of the ads, it’s just all about why we surf, pretty simple. anyway, you can go to this website and write your reason why you surf, check it out, pretty fun. isurfbecause.com

At the moment one wave would do me!!

Shot-shot... Jordy celebrates a big win at home. //Kirstin/ASP

Consigned to the lounge with his gammy foot, Joel watched every heat at J-Bay. Here’s his rap on what he saw…

THE WAVES

The waves were epic. That first day looked unreal and it made it a hard contest for me to watch. The waves looked a lot like last year – my kind of conditions, fast with long walls – and it was definitely the kind of waves I’d been surfing at home before I cut my foot. I found myself mindsurfing everything. The first four heats were really hard to watch because I was getting pissed off that I wasn’t there and it was perfect, but after I got over it I started analysing everyone’s moves and strategies. I was the supercoach on the lounge. I learned a lot sitting on the couch and watching it, all the strategies and tactics from a new angle, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

THE RIGHT WAVES

It’s a hard wave to surf when it’s a bit bigger. When it’s four foot every wave is good, but when it’s six foot like it was on the first day some of them can be burgery. You really had to pick your waves. But it’s more the man-on-man heats when you see wave choice becoming really crucial and there were plenty of guys making mistakes… which is easy to say from my lounge. I was ripping on my lounge. There were a couple of things I pinpointed that guys should and shouldn’t have done and it cost them the heat. Bottle did all the hard work against Adriano but then let himself down by taking the wrong wave. There were a lot of crucial wave choice decisions that cost guys heats. You really see the pressure element at J-Bay. Because they’re generally long period swells and you can have long lulls, the scoreboard pressure at J-Bay is really important. If you’ve got one good score at J-Bay you can apply pressure and force the other guy into a dud wave and get him panicking. The scoreboard pressure is one thing I really noticed when I was watching heats, playing the chess game from the couch.

ANDY

Andy was great. He definitely had flow for sure. J-Bay was never his prime wave when he was on tour, despite the fact he won out there before. It was never his comfort zone. It was no Teahupoo for him. Watch him though in this next contest. If they get some good waves this year in Tahiti look out. One thing that never really changes with your surfing is your ability to ride the barrel, and I reckon in Tahiti he’s going to find himself in his first final series for the year, for sure. Every event this year he’s looked better and better, and if he manages to make a final somewhere soon or even wins one, then look out. He’s the kind of guy who feeds on confidence.

DANE

Dane lives by the kind of surfing we saw in J-Bay, it’s all or nothing and that’s what you’re always going to get. He can do every move in the book and he goes for it, but if he doesn’t make it he’s going to end up with a shocker heat like he had against Taj. He probably only needs to pull himself back 10 per cent in some situations and he’d be winning some heats he’s losing, but the way he surfs he’s not going to do it. That’s not Dane. And if he did pull it back then you wouldn’t be seeing those heat scores of 18 or 19, you’d be seeing 15s and 16s, and then again it’s not quite Dane. He’s still the most exciting surfer to watch on tour and he always goes for it… whether he makes it or not depends on how he’s felling.

KELLY

I was pretty surprised Kelly lost. I thought he was looking real comfortable and calm in his first heat, and when he’s comfortable and calm at J-Bay he’s gonna win. But it didn’t happen against Shaun [Holmes]. Maybe he was thinking too much about Shaun. He’s such a nemesis out there and he gets guys so spooked that maybe he got in Kelly’s head a bit. Or maybe Kelly just had a shocker. I wonder if it was board choice even… his board didn’t look that great to me. Sometimes J-Bay doesn’t have a pocket to surf in, and when that happens and you get longer barrelling sections you can see which boards are really going well and which ones aren’t, and it looked to me like Kelly’s board wasn’t really working for him.

UNDERDOGS

Melling obviously was good, and Bottle was really good too. Shouldn’t be a surprise, they’re both pointbreak surfers and should be suited to J-Bay. In that one heat Bottle showed us what he can really do, he showed how good a pointbreak surfer he is. The Burleigh came out in him. But J-Bay’s inconsistency got him in the end… it got a few guys who were in form. Guys who just didn’t get the chance to ride waves. J-Bay can do that to you; you can be the most in-form surfer in the contest but if you don’t catch waves you won’t win a heat.

MICK

Damo has got some form at J-Bay, he’s no slouch out there, but in saying that you’d think going up against Mick, well, you’d have your money on Mick. But I thought Mick would have surfed a little better – read that it was a slow heat and caught a few more waves because he’s so good at turning four and five waves into sixes and sevens. He kinda waited for solid waves I guess, but if he had of surfed what was in front of him he would have won. No one surfs those little rock barrels better than Mick, he’s so fast and can fit turns in quicker than anyone. But in saying that Damo surfed the heat – and the whole contest – well I thought.

BEST HEAT

The Bede and Jordy semi, for sure… a bit of controversy. Jordy definitely got the score he needed on his last wave, but I thought maybe he should’ve needed more. Did he deserve what he got with his Superman on the first score? Probably not. I only watched it once and haven’t watched a replay, so that’s off one viewing, and there’s a big difference between watching it on TV and watching it live on the point. I might have given it to him if I’d been there, who knows. But I’m not much of a Superman fan. I don’t really get off on them. You might as well do a double grab. They just look a bit ugly to me. But it was great to see Jordy get a win, and to get his first win at home too must have been incredible for him. You could see how much it meant to him.

THE WORLD TITLE

Jordy’s got to number one but it’s the one time of the year you don’t want to be. The first thing I thought about when Jordy won and was that first place on the ratings was that he’s going to draw Manoa Drollet at Chopes. And Kelly went down a bit, so did Mick, so they’ll avoid Manoa. You can’t forget how gnarly that guy is at Teahupoo, especially if there’s swell. Once they get to Trestles I think those guys are really going to start firing up – Mick, Kelly, Taj and Jordy are all amazing out there. From Trestles it’s heading into such a heavy stretch. As hungry as Jordy was heading into J-Bay, he’s gong to have to be just as hungry coming into Pipe in four months time if he’s going to win the title, and there’s a lot of surfing between now and then. Every one of those guys still has a good chance at winning the title and I wouldn’t even be looking at the ratings and the numbers right now. They don’t mean a lot.

MONDAY MORNING from Joel Parkinson on Vimeo.