March 06, 2007
Morocco Surf Trip
Here I am back after a week of surfing trip down in Morocco. It was such an awesome trip. I had loads of fun down there. The weather was amazing, sun shine for the entire 7 days I was there, the last day was particularly hot at 28 degree.
I flew British Airways from Gatwick straight to Agadir, where the people from Surf Camp Morocco. From the flight you can tell that this is a surf spot by the number if people carrying their boards, and just like me, I bet they were having a good time as well.
The Surf Camp Morocco’s house is located in a tiny Moroccan village called Tamrghat, which is a short drive from Taghazout, the main surfing village in Morocco. There’s not much in Tamrghat apart from a couple of surf camps & surf shops.
We had a good consistent swell through out the week. It was down a bit on Tuesday, up for Wednesday – Friday (3 – 4 ft with 5ft clean up sets) then down on Saturday and Sunday. Even at the smallest day (Sunday) where the waves are tiny, it was still surfable.
For most of the week we surfed Banana Point, which despite its name is actually a reef break, well the reef next to the point anyway. It’s a really nice, easy and not crowed spot compared to some of the more popular breaks around Taghazout. It’s actually perfect for my level. The guys there took us to Anchor Point, Killers, Panoramas and other famous breaks. It's fun watching all this world class break so close to each other. On last day we surfed Mysteries, yet another easy wave to surf (on that day at least) but crowded as hell.
The guests & crews at the surf camp were fun. Met this four guys who are uni friends, and they certainly know how to have fun. One of the guys had his birthday on Thursday night and I learned some new interesting drinking games from them.
Posted by vhadiant at 12:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 28, 2006
Hawaii? Nay .. it's Sydney
Image from Aquabumps
In the past two days we have seen one of the biggest swell to hit Sydney in a while.
Posted by vhadiant at 01:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 06, 2005
Andy Irons vs Kelly Slater final once again
In a repeat last WCT event's final, it's Andy Iron and Kelly Slater final once more at Quicksilver Pro Japan 2005 in Chiba. This time Andy Irons got his revenge beating Slater 19.43 against 18.06 in a high scoring final. These two now leading the rating board and just over 500 points separate them.
Quicksilver is currently showing the final in a loop.
Posted by vhadiant at 08:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 23, 2005
Slater won 2005 J-Bay!
Wow ... what an incredible final. Andy Irons had the lead for most of the final before Slater found that final wave in the less than 1 minute left on the clock. He needed massive 9.23 ride to get past Irons and he scored 9.5. At this time Iron already went back to the beach since he wouldn't have had the time to get back to the line-up after his last wave with about 3.5 minute left. What a tight final, this gotta be one of the best win ever for Kelly, such a close one. I thought Irons had it until that amazing final wave from Slater there.
Posted by vhadiant at 12:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 22, 2005
It's Slater vs Andy Irons on the J-Bay final
Wow I couldn't believe my luck. I just got home a few minutes ago and check the aspworldtour.com site to find out what's happening with the J-Bay contest, only to be presented with the last half of the live webcast of the second semifinal between Andy Irons and Greg Emslie. Unfortunately for Greg, having the home crowed advantage couldn't get him past Andy Irons. Andy won the heat with a better surfing and better strategy. He used his priority much better than Greg was.
Anyhow, what even better is the result on the other semi-final. Couldn't you believe it, it was Kelly Slater! Wow Slater and Andy Irons final in 20 minutes and I'm about to watch it, this is absolutely fantastic! This will be the first time they met in a man-on-man final, a history in the making. In 2003 title race, Andy Irons and Slater each had 4 win but not once they met in a final. Isn't that amazing?
Don't you love web-streaming technology?
Posted by vhadiant at 11:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 21, 2005
Bondi bliss ...
This AquaBumps guy is really awesome. It's always a pleasure to browse through his photo of (mostly) Bondi breaks. And that what make it even more amazing .. come on it's Bondi for chrissakes ... of all places, AquaBumps makes Bondi looks like one of the top surfing spot in Sydney :)
Posted by vhadiant at 09:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 11, 2005
Chelsea Georgeson won second title in 2005!
Australian Chelsea Georgeson (Tweed Heads, age 22) has snatched victory from Hawaiian Rochelle Ballard (Oahu, age 33)! Wooho my favourite surfer has closing in to current #1 position Sofia Mulanovich (of Peru) by 230 points. This is also contributed by surprisingly weak performance by Mulanovich in this contest losing at the quarter-final from Keala Kennely.
The women will now take a rest until the next contest on October at Malibu USA. That will be the third last contest this year, and the door is still wide open for Chelsea to snatch the world championship title this year. So far out of the 6 contests for the women, Sofia has won 3 of them and Chelsea won 2 (a qualifier, Stephanie Gilmore, shocked the world by winning the first contest on the tour).
Posted by vhadiant at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)
June 02, 2005
Slater won 2005 Fiji
Kelly Slater won back to back title defeating 2001 World Champ CJ Hobgood. He is now has a 250 points leads (total 3542 points) from the current second ranking on the tour Trent Munro, whose performance this year has been nothing less than exceptional (winning his very first title earlier this year at 2005 Bells Beach).
Current 3x world champ Andy Irons is currently in #4 with 2964 points.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:53 AM | Comments (0)
May 30, 2005
Sofia Mulanovich claims 2005 Cornwall Roxy Pro, Chelsea in close second.
On the inaugural WCT even in the UK, current world champ Sofia Mulanovich claims yet another title, with Aussie Chelsea Georgeson as runner up. This extends her leads to over 800 points from Chelsea after 5 events, in which she gas won 3 of them. There's still another 4 events in the women WCT series this year so there's still a chance for Chelsea, but by looking at Sofia's performance this year (9, 1, 1, 3, 1 finish) it's looking like she's going to win this tour back to back.
Posted by vhadiant at 06:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 23, 2005
Surf photography 101
Sunday 15th May 2005, it was the beginning of the week long swell that pounded Sydney, at its height it was producing 2.5m waves around Sydney’s beaches. I knew about the surf condition beforehand, however I had a bit of hope that on that Sunday the condition will calm down and the swell will fade. It didn’t. On Sunday morning I checked out the surf report and all reported 3-5 ft waves along the beaches. Checking out the photos I quickly concluded that it was out of my league. Being optimistic dude, I still went out, took my board with me just in case. This time though I brought my digicam along, I thought it’s going to be a good photo opportunity!
Arriving at the beach I surveyed the condition and yep it’s definitely out of my league. If I went out there I will either a) got my self killed or b) killed someone (my board flying out of control). I decided that discretion is the better part of the valour, kept my board on my trusty red Mitsubishi Mirage and took my Canon A70 instead.
There was a contest at Nth. Steyne and there was a professional photographer (well at least I thought he was professional with a professional looking camera and equipment) on the beach. I took about 50 or so pictures along Nth. Steyne - Queenscliff stretch. I wasn’t very happy with the result. Surf photography turned out quite difficult there’s a couple of interesting thing that I discovered:
1) Giving the impression of size is hard. Yep it’s really hard to show how big a wave is without anyone surfing in it. Taking a picture of a surfer is even hard because of:
2) Surf is always moving. It’s different than taking a photo of a landscape. The surf constantly moving and this is even harder on beach breaks where peak is always shifting.
3) Now you see it now you don’t! It’s fast fast fast fast. You have to concentrate watching the spot that you’d think will produce the best photo and keep watching it. Focus the camera early and wait. This can be frustating, no wonder all the pro are using tripod (or some sort) to help them when taking photo from the land.
4) Action photo is hard. You’d think you found a good peak, and a bunch of competent surfer on it now it’s time to take some action shot. It’s bloody hard. They may or may not turn where you point your camera and you have to follow it with your finger itchy to press that button on your camera.
5) LCD screen is totally useless. Use the viewfinder it’s much easier on this circumstances.
So that’s only a couple of things I found out from my last photo outings. Like I said I wasn’t happy so I drove up to Dee Why hoping to be able to get better photo there since it’s a point break so at least I know where the wave is going to break and it’s closer to action than Manly stretch. So up to Dee Why and with a couple of lessons learned from Manly I took a couple more shots there. The result was a bit better, too bad the best location to shoot a photo is obstructed by a telegraph pole :) On my way home I did a quick stop at Curl Curl and Freshie took a couple more shots.
OK time to stop yapping and show the result, it’s on my photo album!
Posted by vhadiant at 09:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 20, 2005
Kelly Slater won 2005 Billabong Pro Tahiti, perfect 10 - 10 score
WOW 2 perfect 10 point rides at the final in Teahupoo. The man is back :) This is the first title for Kelly in 2005 after a dissapointing start of the year.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 12, 2005
Chelsea Georgeson clinched third title
Chelsea Georgeson secured both her third ASP Tour and Layne's sucessor title in an all Aussie final against West Australian Mel Redman-Carr, beating the current world champ (and still rating leader) Peruvian Sofia Mulanovich on the semi-final. Her latest win also move her up to 2nd spot on the WCT ratings.
A world title in store for Chelsea? Yep definitely, maybe not this year but certainly sometime soon. There's still 650 points gap with Sofia, thanks to her stellar performance this year. 2 titles, 1 runner-up and one 9th place finish. There are 5 more WCT contest remaining so anything can happen. Go Chelsea :)
Posted by vhadiant at 06:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 03, 2005
That was close ... too close.
Raimana Van Bastoloer had a close one when a jet ski who was abandoned by the driver almost decapitated him. This was at Teahupoo, one of (if not) the scariest wave in the planet.
Ducking death and monsters...
World champion Andy Irons was among the onlookers when Van Bastoloer was towed onto a five-metre set by Hawaii's aptly named Reef MacIntosh, who mistimed his exit and became caught in the lip.In one horrifying moment, MacIntosh let go of his ski on top of the wave, with Van Bastoloer at the bottom. The ski was pitched straight at Van Bastoloer, who ducked at the last second, the ski missing him by about 15cm, according to Irons. The ski speared into the reef and smashed to pieces while Van Bastoloer pulled into a massive barrel.
...
Posted by vhadiant at 09:35 PM | TrackBack
April 17, 2005
Shark attack at Bronte
And what did he do? Just like what any other surfer would do, jump back in the water as soon as he can :)
Posted by vhadiant at 10:05 AM | TrackBack
April 06, 2005
Bondi's Surf
This is just way too good :)
[via Aquabumps]
And this is to all that snigger under their breath when getting the answer of "Where do you surf?" as "Bondi". I know that Bondi is probably flat, mushy, suck, or just straight for the good part of the year, but it can be juicy as well. That pic was taken on Mon, 21 March 2005 (a bit old I know, but I've just come across it today), the beginning of the April 2005 swell.
Posted by vhadiant at 11:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 23, 2005
Slater at Deadmans!
Earlier today six-time world champ Kelly Slater ripped at Deadmans. Now just check out those crazy wild waves we had today :)
[Update]
Saw the footage at 10 late news, it was mad.
Posted by vhadiant at 07:40 PM
