Yesterday I spent a few Ours at Cape Solander. And I did not regret the early alarm clock and the bloody rain ! Blake, Hippo and Gilso have shown everyone how it's done, with control, elegance, and style.
We filled up a car with Joel Pilgrim and Arnaud Thousandfield, and headed South to the Cape, to see Theirs (well, I will not call it Ours, at it will never be mine, that's for sure !). Arrived on the muddy parking lot, I got my vans soaked, and got down to the rocks to check it out. ''Too much water still'' we think. ''The odd bigger set could be surfable, but the rest would be way too close to the rocks on that point''. But then, we realised we were looking where normal people would look, but not where Gilso and Blake were looking. They saw waves in this mess that you can only see with a trained eye, and more importantly great confidence in your skills. Just a little further out, if you'd wait long enough, you'd see them: Big, dark, fat lipped and mean !
Blake and Gilso paddle out, and scored. Flawless style, making it look super easy. Blake got a few, and Gilso seemed shy. But then he dropped on a bomb, came out of the barrel and looked back at it. Click. Mental picture.
Hippo arrived a bit later and got in the rythm pretty quickly.
Soon after, we had to leave. Not just because I started to get annoyed by standing in the pouring rain, trying to protect the gear (by the way, if some of those pictures look ''noisy'', they're not: they're just wet. It's just the rain doing it's magic on the shots, just like it did on my camera ! :-/ ), but because we had some obligations back in Bondi.
The only regret of the day is for Joel. He wanted a surf there. And he wanted to do it on his favorite 9'2ft. He did not get it this time. But he will. And Frothers will be there with him the day this happens. We've got a full winter ahead of us for that ! looking at the glass half full, we came home. No broken bones. No broken boards.
Have a nice day. We're in for a week of waves. The South protected corners will be the best picks for the few days ahead.
Franck
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