The photo below is from the very controversial surf cam at the famous Winki Pop surf beach, Victoria, Australia - just near Bells Beach, which is even more famous. After two months of poor swell, Saturday's rating was 9/10 - it was big, offshore, and glorious. I'd like to say I went to Bells and took some photos myself, but this screenshot will have to do - exactly, I suppose, what people are worried about - no one has given permission to be filmed surfing, but there it is. I have mixed feelings about surf cams. I live 30 minutes from a beach, so they sure save me driving. The crowds are hear despite the surf cams.

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I surfed, however, here - it's less big, and in fact from the cliffs it's hard to see the size at all. It's one of the few spots around that you can surf when it's that big, and for that reason, it can get quite busy.

A zoom in with the phone shows the swell wrapping around the point. Within two hours it'd get even bigger, but still, in the bay itself no bigger than 3 foot. As it was the first weekend of hot weather and surf in ages, it sure was crowded - it was a bit like dodgem cars trying to avoid people but I guess it's a sign of how well I can surf these days that I can do that, having control of my board.

On Sunday, I had my SEVENTH day of surfing IN A ROW. The swell had dropped, so we surfed a place called Urqhuarts. It works better on a mid tide but we went out on high as we wanted to go out early as we knew it'd be crowded. In fact, by the time we got out - it was - check the photo below. Still, we got some nice sized waves on the decent sets from the reef to the right (you can't really see it in this pic). My heart was thumping but I took off anyway, telling myself it was kinda fat and full anyway and not a lot of power, so what was the worst that could happen? I really like this break for the challenge - not too much I'm going to injure myself but enough to give me confidence on bigger waves.

I have a girlfriend nearly ten years younger than me that'll only surf waves half the size and wont go out in crowds at all. To me, that means she misses out on half the waves! She only lasted a few waves yesterday before she went in as she was too worried about getting hit by other poeple, but I found that if I made eye contact or jsut watched where I was everything was fine. You could drop in on people further down the line and pull off if they got within 5 metres of you - it was that kind of day.

After our surf, we laid on the beach IN THE SUNSHINE like we were doing something called RELAXING - crazy right? Honest to goodness, I could do this every day. I have ten days to get a few more surfs in before we fly to the UK and I don't surf for weeks, which bother me heaps, but I guess I've got to woman up and find something else to do.

How was your Sunday?

With Love,

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