Teale Vanner

Going into event number seven of 2009, Teale Vanner had not made a single heat. Not one solitary heat. The natural footer from Kangaroo Island now calls Tugun home, and he is renowned as having one of most aesthetically pleasing styles on the Junior Series. Everyone who knows Teale will tell you he is an outright legend, a quiet guy with a big heart.

Everyone loves him and his surfing, but somehow he manages to be beaten round one at every event.

Going into the Fantastic Noodles Pro Junior in his home state evcryone was expecting Teale to do well. Round one, he controversially paddles out on a 5’2 fish and falls chasing a small score to progress in the final minute.

No surfboard punching, no blow up at the judges, no carpark carrying on. You will never see Teale behave badly at a loss. He just puts his head down and quietly goes about supporting his friends.

Then the circus packs up and moves to Bali for the Billabong Pro Junior at Keramas. The waves are amazing. For the first time this year, a Pro Junior event is not a wave catching contest. This event is based on pure surfing and Teale shines. Round one, he progresses in second place and from then on he only grows with confidence. He never looks like losing, dropping high eights and nines on his road to the final day.

The final day dawns and there is only a skeleton crowd at the beach. Still feeling the pinch from a big night at the Bounty, I only had 45 minutes sleep before going to Keramas with my good friend and Bali housemate Mitch Crews. Again the waves were pumping and Teale put on a display that not only sobered me up, but made me smile my way through a grade five hangover. My personal highlight from the day was Teale’s ten point ride in his first heat of the day. He stroked into a perfect set wave and looked to be too deep. Somehow he came out cleanly and sent the boys into a frenzy. From then we got rowdy in our support, whistling and cheering with every moment on Teale’s waves. His semi final was incredibly tough, coming up against South African standout, Dale Staples. We all knew Teale was emotionally and physically exhausted and we cringed when he fell on his first few waves. Then with a sudden burst he dropped a high eight and an nine and sealed himself a place in his first ever Pro Junior final.

The final was a one sided affair, with NSW nugget Dean Bowen leaving Teale in a combination situation. With no disrespect intended towards Dean’s win, the final day was all about Teale. We had seen him a shattered man after every event this year, and I feel privileged to have been a witness to his long awaited rise to success.

Thankyou Teale for making us all feel good inside. 

Peak Rejuvenation

The offensively attractive men at Peak Wetsuits have stepped into the ring with their original website layout and come out unanimous victors. They have made some serious changes. I can't be flagged explaining them all, you will just have to explore it for yourselves. Here is my profile page. More team videos and rider blogs are going to be added soon.

www.peak.com.au

Justin Induced Seizure

A family holiday down the coast nearly ended in tragedy as a direct result of Justin Timberlake’s song “Rock Your Body”. In preparation for an early morning surf check, I armed myself with my new discman loaded with Justin Timberlake’s chart topping album, Justified. Justin’s sweet voice and epic beats took control of my body, sending me into a dancing frenzy. At that very moment, nothing else mattered.

My sensual moment was destroyed by a screaming car horn. I awoke from my Justin induced seizure and realised I was standing in the middle of the Great Ocean Road, with cars coming at me from both directions. Instinctively I ran for the safety of the beach carpark and somehow I made it in one piece.

Justin Timberlake nearly killed me. It would have been more than acceptable for me to end our relationship at that very moment, but the next song that came on was “Like I Love You”. I soon fell back into the arms of Justin, this time in the safe environment of the beach at Kennet River.

Everyone loves Justin, so I thought it would be epic to drop one of his video clips here for your viewing pleasure… 

Fantastic South Aus

Day one of the event saw what looked to be cracking waves, and the event was put on hold. It was 3 to 4 ft, with random peaks breaking the length of Waitpinga beach. We were stunned. We returned at 10.30am anticipating the start of round one and were met with strange news. Today was a lay day. Confused and with nothing else to do, the majority of the competitors jumped in the rip to the west of the car park, then it was clear why we had scrapped competition for the day. What looked like enticing peaks from the shore, turned into unpredictable closeouts upon closer inspection. No matter where you positioned yourself, the better waves proved elusive. When you finally found yourself in the slot for a runner there would be five other juniors on your inside. The reality of the junior series is that we are a travelling instant crowd.  If you were able to find yourself on what resembled a wave, it would take a ridiculous amount of time and effort to return to the lineup. The conditions were tough  and everyone agreed that it was an acceptable call to scrap competition for the day.

Competition commenced on day two, with chest high sets breaking in a far more organised fashion than the previous day. The majority of scoring rides were on the left directly in front of the competition set up, but occasionally a natural footer would sneak down the bank to the east and find a cheeky score on the right.

I took out my first heat, with Sam Wrench sneaking second from Tyson Kosuzak in the dying minutes. My housemates, brothers Jordy and Ty Watson both progressed with solid heat wins. Unfortunately my bunk buddy, Dean Bowen, was a shock early elimination from the event. With Dean needing an emotional lift, we purchased a heap of ammunition of the Phoonk Gun* (a homemade rocket launcher) and under the cover of darkness we found a secluded area and unleased oranges into the atmosphere in deodorant fuelled mayhem.

Day three saw a further reduction in both the swell size and conditions. Hassling was at an all time high, with barely breaking waist high lefts and rights breaking off a tiny takeoff area. Davey Cathels went down in his second interference induced loss in as many events, venting his frustration with the judges on his way to the car park. I won both my round of 32 and 16 heats, setting up a career best result. Owen Wright was the usual standout despite the fact he was clearly surfing at 10%.  Both of the Watson boys lost their round of 16 heats in the afternoon and once again the Phoonk Gun was turned to for emotional support. Lemons were our projectile of choice this afternoon and no animals were harmed in our hour of adolescent rebellion.

The conditions improved for the final day of surfing, but it was still pretty average. To the delight of the groupies on the beach, Noah Lane surfed the first heat of the day in boardshorts. His quarter final opponent, Owen, had withdrawn from the event to chase the $100,000USD winners prize at the US Open, leaving Noah the perfect opportunity to carry out his losing bet with Davey on the state of origin results. I went down to David Vlug in our wave starved quarter-final. Needing a high 6 point ride, I waited with priority and nailed a 7.5 only to turn around and see Vlug throwing vertical combinations on the heat winning 8 point score.

Rather than returning to our Joy Court residence, I joined SA legend Todd Goudie on the commentary for the remainder of the day. Noah beat Chris “Wendy” Friend in semi final one and Vlug out surfed Billy Kean in the second. The girls were semis were a faced paced affair, with Kirby Wright going down to a rampaging Laura Enever and Tyler Wright leaving Ellie Jean Coffey chasing a combination of scores.

Rather than holding an expression session, the “Fantastic Noodles Next Wave Celebrity Drop In Challenge” was staged to pass time. Before The Game’s Lehmo nearly drowned in the shorebreak in a relatively uninteresting affair.

The womens final was a cracker, with Tyler Wright and Laura Enever exchanging blows on the walling rights. With five minutes remaining Tyler looked the goods, but two late excellent scores, Laura took the win in a thriller.

The mens final was a relatively one sided affair. Vlug never found rhythm and was forced to sit and watch Noah throw down consecutive nine point rides. Having finished second to Owen at the previous event in Western Australia, it was good to see Noah take out his first win on the Junior Series.

 The presentations went down in standard fashion, before everyone bailed to make their flight to the next event to be held at Keramas, in bomb riddled Bali.

I am writing this sitting in a cramped seat next to an overweight Englishman, 35649 feet from the ground, somewhere over the centre of the Northern Territory.

*The Phoonk Gun may or may not exist. We may or may not have fired it. This story may or may not be fictional and we may or may not have done burnouts in the hire car on the way to our secret location. I do not condone the use of illegal projectile firing devices.

Phoonk Gun

Is there a better way  to pass time in South Australia than by firing oranges from a homemade rocket launcher? 

Sportsbet.com.au

While  I do not encourage gambling, I have to say that sportbet.com.au has brought he a lot of joy. I started an account over a year ago while I was in Margaret River because I was bored. I intended to only bet on surfing, but soon after I signed up they canned that avenue because they had to have been loosing a shitload of coin. When I began, I dropped $30 in my account and was only making small $1 or $2 bets just to add some excitement to whatever sport I was watching. As time progressed, I gained a better understanding of how it all worked. Then I found the Multibet button.

The idea behind Multibets is that you are betting on multiple events to occur. For example, Geelong and Carlton to win. If one team wins, you get nothing, but if both teams win you win at an inflated level of odds. 

My brother Dyson follows sport a lot more than me, so I allowed him to make a few bets. Before we knew it my initial $30 had swollen to over $1000, mainly through big multibets comprising of 10 or more events. 

Since then it has dropped back to the $600 range and Dyson has pulled out of the race (I changed my password). 

I am not endorsing gambling, but I will say that if my account ever reaches $0, that $30 I started with has brought me an incredible amount of entertainment. 

I have been watching Netball, NRL and more AFL than ever before. Sportsbet has given me a reason to get excited on the couch, anything that gives you a reason to be couchbound more often is a good thing. So I say thankyou to Sportsbet.com.au

There Is No Place Like Home

Despite being tired from the midnight flight home from Western Australia, I really wanted to go surfing. Being away from home, one of the biggest things I miss is surfing my local breaks with my good friends. I called my good buddy Jay Abbott for a surf report, only to be disappointed. It had been flat for a few weeks, and nothing had changed. Looking for something to do, we jumped in the Subaru of Doom and drove 30 minutes east to Barwon Heads to see my shaper Cory Russell.

We cut the board talk session short and headed home in hope of sneaking a little surf in before dark. Driving back home we were confronted with a massive cloud front. Sensing an increase in the swell I turned economy mode off, dropped back a gear and sped into the darkness. 

It was still pretty much flat. There was the occasional small set wobbling through the lineup and that was enough to get us suited up and out there. Jay and I were joined by Tommy Allan as we unnecessarily paddled around the button on our way to the Winkipop lineup. Our good friend and Peak Wetsuits designer Jai "Homma" Martin beat us to the take off area at uppers. 

The waves definitely weren't pumping, but we didn't care. I was relishing being back in familiar waters with some of my best friends. Surfing took a back seat as we used the take off area to discuss more gossip than an issue of Womans Day magazine. We all caught a few fun little runners before darkness closed in and each of us were more than pleased with how we had spent our last hour. You can be anywhere in the world, but nothing truly beats being home.  

My next adventure starts this friday, where I head to Sydney for the Werri Beach leg of the Red Bull Junior Surf Masters. From there I am off to Adelaide for the Fantastic Noodles Pro Junior and then over to Bali for the Billabong Pro Junior at Keramas. 

Stay tuned updates of my upcoming travels!