"So Joel, cats always land on their feet, toast always falls butter side down. Does a buttered cat land on it's feet?"

After such a big break – six weeks or so – it was tough to get back in the groove today. Surfed a tough first heat this morning against Kai Otton and Kai Barger… Kai Otton, Kai Barger, Kai Parkinson. The surf at Trestles wasn’t that great in the morning, the lefts were the better waves but they had a lot of wind on them and it was hard to find clean face that didn’t section off cause the tide was so low. It was also tough having to balance nursing the ankle a bit and exploding out of turns. It’s always takes a few heats to re-establish confidence in an injury. Otto ripped and got the heat, but I was happy that I got a couple of keepers and surfed with a bit of rhythm. I lost the heat but still felt pretty good with how I’d done.

When I found out they were going to run my second round heat late in the afternoon I wasn’t so sure at first. I haven’t surfed twice in a day since my final day at J-Bay, but the waves had got a lot better on the incoming tide so I was cool with it. I knew it was going to be a tough heat – Kai Barger’s the world junior champion and the guy rips. The lefts were still running a bit longer than the rights which would favour Kai, so I knew I’d have to surf a smart heat. It turned out to be a slow heat with not a lot of waves, and I was able to use priority and get a couple of clean ones. I only got sixes for them, but scores were pretty hard to find out there and they turned out to be enough.

And the best part about surfing my heat this afternoon was the fact I’ve got a day off tomorrow. Not sure what I’m gonna do yet. Louie’s coming round in the morning and we’re going for a freesurf up the beach from the contest, just to stay loose. Surfer Poll the day after, so I’m not going to run out of things to do in a hurry.