Helllllooooo from West Australia! We made it! After a lot of debating what luggage to take and leave behind with our allowance of 30kg plus 10kg sports equipment each and 7kg hand luggage with Qatar airlines, we arrived in Perth to be greeted by Graham Woods and a nice cold beer! I only managed to take my 69l Simmer Flywave and one 370 mast, sharing 3.7 to 5.0 sails with Stef, so pretty minimal kit and I was gutted I couldn't fit in a surf board. I'll have to beg/borrow/steal when it comes to surfing.
We met up with some old friends from Uni in Perth (seems to be a little Pom gathering out here!) spent a ridiculous amount on two hours parking in Perth ($24 whaaat?!) got some essential toiletries as we didn't have any room for any and picked up our dinky but very functional campervan from GoCamper. The van does the job, is well kitted out with a little fridge, cooker and bed, and the kit goes on the roof (most of the time).
Camping with Ben and Justyna:
Enjoying the very useful awning!
Next we headed to Lancelin for the Ocean Classic, and after all our faffing, only managed to leave in the evening, a sunset 1.5 hour drive-we were warned not to drive at sunset, oh dear! We drove slow annoying the locals and were pretty freaked out about kangaroos jumping into us but managed to get there in one piece! No more sunset driving now, though I'm pretty sure kangaroos can jump out any time as we saw one in the middle of the day...
My first day at Lancelin they held the wave competition for $100. I really wasn't sure whether to enter as you can't really see the break from the beach (it's an offshore reef) and I hadn't sailed there before. People gave advice like don't go too deep, avoid the dry reef, and this is the biggest its been in ages! So it didn't really set my mind at ease and I decided not to waste 100 dollars. I sailed in the morning, pretty underpowered on 4.2 as there was loads of current, and for the comp they needed 3 waves and 3 jumps in about 12 minutes-pretty hard! After a couple more sessions I realised I now knew the break, it wasn't as scary as everyone made out, in fact a little crumbly and re-formy compared to Chile's waves and with hindsight I was gutted I hadn't entered the comp. I guess I kind of needed an extra day before to know what I was doing first. My old friend from Uni, Maeli Cherel won the competition in the end so congratulations to her!
The weekend was really hot (40-50 degrees) and not much wind but they managed to just have enough for the downwinder race. I think about 200 entered and about 138 started, as it was really light wind I guess people didn't have the right kit. Again I waited around until registration closed to see if I could enter on 5m and 85l board but it wasn't windy enough. Another year I'll have to come back and beg/borrow/steal some bigger kit! The winner won on a 9m something sail in about 40 minutes I think. Justyna completed the race having broken her harness on the 4th mark and with a dodgy foot and cracked rib, pretty nuts! and Ben Proffit came 9th in the elite and Maeli in 2nd.
Enjoying juicy watermelon in the heat!
The big downwinder!
Yesterday we drove up to Geraldton and Coronation beach (about 3 hours North), via some tourist attractions, The Pinacles rock formations and to Lake Thetis to see Stromatolites (see pic for a description!).
Ahhh snake!! Don't worry, this was in a museum, haven't seen any yet!
Stromatolites
Road train!
Not many pics of windsurfing yet as Lancelin's break was quite far offshore. I should get some at Corros later hopefully! Lastly, a little pic of me looking Aussie?! Burnt my lips already so have bought some white zinc stuff, a big hat, and we are making use of the internet at the Library!
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