Early morning puntage.

My heat this morning was okay. I didn’t win but I found a couple of really wide ones. I rode the wrong board – I needed to be on a bigger board – and I got dropped in on by some guy on one of my waves. He turned around and was going, “Yeah Parko!” and I was like, “Thanks mate, but any chance you can get off me wave?” But the beach here is one of those places where you do a lot of work and you never know if you’re going to get rewarded for it. Sometimes you get three good waves in 10 minutes, then next thing you’re paddling for the next hour. It’s a fishing expedition. It’s pot luck. Theres a lot of taking off and hoping. You can be 10 feet from the peak all day. It’s a real unknown out there. It’s actually really good fun to freesurf because you have time, but as you soon as you put a time constraint on it and you’re waiting 10 minutes for a wave you’re in trouble. It reminds me a little bit of Johanna down in Victoria. It has a wild open beachbreak feel because there’s so much water moving. Because the bay here sucks so much water in and out and drags it up and down the beach the waves are really powerful. The current gets real strong.

Does this look like a man who's just seen a dolphin?

The shark was another thing. Dusty looked rattled. There were half a dozen surfers in the competitors in the area when he came in and they looked as rattled as he was. He reckoned it was the biggest thing he’d ever seen. I saw a seal out in my heat and he went, “That was no seal, that was something that eats seals.” You’re always looking for waves out there but now I’m looking for fins. Its going to be in the back of my mind, for sure. There’ve been two shark attacks here in a week. It just feels sharky. Back home we get reefies and whalers and hammerheads, up here they’ve just one shark… and it’s the big one.

Luckily in my next heat I was paddling so much that I completely forgot about any shark. My heat this afternoon was a shocker. The tide had come in and the wind had swung onshore and you couldn’t buy a wave out there. I rode a wave for half a mile and got a three. I got to the end of it and looked how far I’d gone and thought are you kidding me? I’ve gone that far and got a three? It was so depressing. And then when I finally got a wave and got the lead back I was just waiting for Perillo to get the three or four or whatever it was he needed to win. But luckily for me it was as bad for him as it was for me and I was just lucky to get through it.

Supertubes today.

This place is like South Straddie on steroids. And the waves come in like Pipe, just these big peaks rolling through. You’ve just got to paddle into position and get under the peak. It’s not Pipe by any means, but after surfing such crap lately it feels awesome to see those big lumps come in and heave. It’s so much like South Straddie the way it pulls and bends, like a big chunky day at South Straddie.

It’s good to be back and winning heats now that the title is all over for me, to just go and surf a heat and relax and enjoy it and not have that in the back of your mind, you know. The outcome of that heat yesterday didn’t have as much riding on it and it let me surf it with no pressure. I had so much fun in that heat, more fun than I’ve had in all my heats in the past few months. And the last few heats I’ve surfed have been scrappy threes and fours, so it was good to have a heat where there were good waves and we were trading eights and nines. Today the surf is so good, guys are going to be throwing away sevens, eights and nines in this contest, guaranteed. That’s when it gets exciting. There are plenty of waves out there, you just have to shark it a bit, paddle around and go hunting them. It’s like surfing South Straddie in that way; you don’t sit still for too long and you have to go to the waves, they don’t come to you.

I can’t wait to surf against Dusty. He’s a good mate, and he surfed an incredible heat, he thought he was out at Backdoor. We’ve had a couple of good heats in the past and hopefully the waves will stick around and we get to throw some nines at each other.

Fully whipped. //Shorty

How good was today? I thought when I paddled out for my Quik Pro heat that it was as good as Snapper was going to get, but then it just kept getting better and better all day. It was a bit hit and miss when I paddled out for my heat with Dusty, and no one had been barrelled all day because of the high tide… but the tide was dropping and I knew they were there. I was pretty confident I could find a couple and I was lucky enough to get two in the first five minutes. It was a real danger heat for me cause Dusty is a freak, and I was pretty stoked to make it through to the next round.

I watched the last few heats from home on Fuel and was blown away by how good it got. My God, how was Bede’s heat? Are you kidding me? It was like watching Backdoor some of those barrels, and I’m just hoping it’s as good tomorrow. Am pretty psyching on my heat with Freddy, and just hope we get some waves like today. I’ll just be happy if I get barrelled a few times.

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Snapper has jumped up a foot or two overnight and I’ve just heard that Round Three is running today. I had a quick freesurf out there this morning and there are some fun waves. I’ve got Dusty Payne which is going to be a huge heat for me. I was so stoked Dusty qualified last year and I reckon he really adds something to the tour… I just hope he doesn’t add too much today. There’s some killer heats… Taj v Owen, Mick v Brett Simpson, Andy v Bobby. Going to be a huge day. Check it out on Fuel TV or online… I’m in Heat 9 which should be around 11.30.