When I rocked up at the fence it looked pretty smooth and about 4ft. Tony quickly corrected me and for the next 15 minutes continued to bag the conditions. Granted it looked pretty fat and semi-gutless, but there was waves and at Southend what more could you ask for?

Anyway, I decided to give it a go. As Sharlo said "It still looks like fun". And fun it was. I paddled North of the million strong pack of M5ers, then sat way out the back by myself. It was quite relaxing, and every 5 minutes or so a bigger set would roll through and could just pick off any I wanted.

As it turned out I hooked up some nice long waves that walled the whole way to shore. Lefts, rights, and the occassional straight hander for good measure. Nothing spectacular, but great fun and uncrowded, even with 100+ surfers in the water ... just none of them out where I was sitting.

...

Called by hickey this morning at 6am "Get out of bed, the Bra is pumping, offshore, and uncrowded!!" I was there in 5 minutes and Hickey was already in the water. While I was getting changed I saw Howie get a couple of nice ones in the dunny bowl, and thought "That'll do me". As is usually the case a good surfer, like Howie, can make a sucky sand dredging pit look like a nice calm section. I caught a couple of sets there, had a chat, but then moved on to find the Hickster.

Watched Hickey get some pearler rights, and mostly sat around getting the shits with everyone paddling then pulling back or just going straight. Managed to hook into a couple of ok ones, but finshed with a gem ... Took of on a set, 3-4ft range, pulled in from take off and come out pretty quick. I lined up the next section which looked like it was going to smoothly open a bit. To my surprise it hit the inside bank and jacked into a hollow surfer e ...

Small, fat, guttless, bumpy, onshore, weedy, cold.

Matty O' was somehow tearing it to shreds and Graeme O' was carving it up on his new Samurai Fish. They liked it, I didn't really get excited, but it was still good to be in the water. Maybe I've been a little spoilt the last couple of weeks.

Ben went out just as I came in. I'll be interested to see if he liked it after two weeks in the desert.

Arrived early hoping to get the reef alone again, but it seemed my Monday blog sparked some interest and there were already three guys out. Too crowded for the reef, so I went home and back to bed.

Hayfever was driving me mad so I worked from home and headed back down late in the arfternoon to flush my sinuses out.

Ended up getting some nice 3ft lefts in the bowl. It was sucky and rippy and real fun. Wes was hating it, but I was loving it ... yeeewwww.

Southend reef was breaking and I was the only one on it ... What's going on? Managed to get some ok 4ft waves out the reef, and was pretty stoked to have it alone for once.

The only hassle was a coconut palm drifting through the line-up. Pretty scary actually. It was 20ft long and 18inches in diameter. It popped out of nowhere right beside me then just casually cruised across the reef. Lucky I didn't get hit by it I suppose. Although I'm sure many of you would suggest that was unlucky for everyone else. (I'm so Emo)

This morning was 'sole' surfing at it's best.

What a great surprise Saturday morning turned out to be. Was staying in Shell Harbour over the weekend and the prospects for a south swell and NE winds looked like the Farm was all set for some fun little waves. As it turned out it was a good 3 - 5ft and pretty powerful ... woooot.

Unlike most days at the farm it was uncrowded, probably due to the fact it wasn't 2ft. Picked off some absolute pearlers and managed to push my 6'2" to it's limit on some of the sets. Stayed out for a couple of hours and was stuffed after a couple of dozen 100m rides to the shore. The swell looked to be dropping and the crowd was starting to fill in, so I bailed to try again later. Spent the arvo hanging out with my sons instead and took them swimming and relaxed a bit.

Sunday morning and I was psyched to hit again. Unfortunately it had backed right off over night and was 2ft, and hence pretty crowded. They were mostly kooks, so I picked off all the waves I wanted. The board ...

What an Epic weekend.

This will be a long blog as so much happened and so much more has to be kept a secret.

For me the weekend started Thursday night after I knocked off work at 7pm. I drove up to Pacific Palms with the intention of getting there and going straight to sleep in my room (commonly refered to as my car). On arrival I decided that it looked very uncomfortable and that a couple of beers and some Saos with cheese would do the trick. Eight beers, half a packet of Saos and 45 minutes later I was ready to crash, but not before the people staying in the house I was sleeping out the front of turned up. There were about four car loads still with high beams ablaze from the drive down the Lakes Way. I wonder what they must have thought pulling into the driveway seeing a guy with a row of beers, a packet of Saos and some cheese sitting in the boot of an old Kia out the front. Needless to say, I survived the first night's adventure.

Friday ...