Peter 'Joli' Wilson

Happy May Day

2010-04-30T12:15:00.006+10:00

It's the last day of April and the surf has returned to the Gold Coast after a week of tiny waves. Cool south westerly winds early and an easterly swell made for some fun conditions this morning. I figure it caught a lot of people by surprise as the line ups were fairly sparsely packed early. The dropping tide made a bit of difference and the news of the 'weekend' swell arriving a day early started to filter out.
We've got a long weekend here in Queensland for May Day so today could be a little entre for the next few days. Get out there and enjoy it.
Cheers
Joli

Chelsea gets her ducks in a row at the Drug Aware Pro

2010-04-20T14:36:00.007+10:00

They were calling it Super Sunday, Ladies Day at the Drug Aware Pro and if all the punters around the contest had their money on one person it was that gal, Super Sally. At some stage this week Sally Fitzgibbons had earned the nick name (a typically Aussie thing) of Super Sally or variations of it. The buzz on the beach on the final day was all about a Super Sal vs Tyler Wright final. Both girls had been ripping and looked headed to the final showdown.
Out of the wings emerged the Super Mum, Chelsea Hedges, who had taken a year off the WCT tour in 2008 to have a baby and was now back in the women's contest mix and causing some havoc.
She hadn't won a contest since 2007 although she came very close in the WCT final in Portugal last year, which was won by Coco Ho. "I just ran out of steam in that final,' said Chelsea after arriving back on the beach today. '...I wasn't going to let it happen again."
Super Sal had racked the highest heat score of the whole contest, both mens' and women's, with an 18.43 points out of a possible 20 in the semis but couldn't repeat it in the final.She tried mighty hard and almost nailed it with her last ride. It put her into the lead but Chelsea had split the peak with her, gone right, and snatched the lead back as the hooter sounded.
The weird thing today was from the quarters on there was one natural footer and one goofy in each heat and to make it even weirder most of the rides were backhand waves. Chelsea had one forehand wave in the final while Sally surfed left the whole time.

Just a a foot note, the DNA flow runs deep in OZ. Felicity Palmateer , who made the semi's is a second cousin to former world pro surfer Josh Palmateer while Tyler Wright, who made the other semi, is the brother of Owen Wright. Dad Rob was caddying for Tyler and was stoked to have one of the siblings make it through so far. 'We had one go up and one go down this week," he said after Tyler's quarter final and was disappointed that she didn't go further but "...it's not a bad result for Tyler."

Chelsea got all her ducks in a row today and welcomed the win. She reckoned it was a great warm up for Bells which starts next week.

That's it from WA, it's been a great week here in Margaret River, the country bush smell is unbelievable and it's a great arena. Good days on the beach with sun and surf and good red wine to top off the end of the days. The Cow Parade has been a moo'ving experience and we even scored a green flash for our last sunset.
We're now headed to Bells later this week.
CYA
Peter 'Joli' Wilson

Kerr gets high to win the Drug Aware Pro

2010-04-20T13:05:00.006+10:00

Kerrsey, kerrsey kerrsey. That's all I'm hearing right now. It's a couple of hours after Josh Kerr pulled a joey out of the Kangaroo's pouch by disposing of a 16 point combo in a matter of minutes to win the six star prime Drug Aware Pro at Margaret River . With about five minutes to go Josh pulled two huge airs to score the only perfect 10 point ride of the week. The rights at Margs with the side onshore were providing the perfect ramps for airs. Kerrsey punted again on his next wave to hit the lead, leaving Taj needing over an eight with 90 secs to go.

Apparently Taj and Josh had been joking out in the water late in the final about the roll that Taj Burrow was on. "Yeah I was telling Taj how many points he'd have and how he was killing it in the ratings and how he'd won three contests this year and then he didn't win" said Josh with a laugh." Even the beach commentators were claiming Taj had won 23 heats in a row and won three finals on the way. They were being a bit liberal with the truth cos Taj had lost his first round heat at the Quikie Pro before winning the contest but as Bede Durbidge, who lost to Taj in the semi's reckoned, "Nobody counts first round losses, so technically he has won 23 in a row."

If anybody was on a roll this week it was Josh. He beat the current world champ Mick Fanning twice and then took out the World #1 Taj in the final. Maybe a drop of the Margaret River reds (not the kangaroo variety) helped him along in the early rounds but last night he went to bed by 8.30 and was stressing that he wouldn't be able to perform today. An unnecessary worry and if you look at his board preparation for the comp then maybe it just sums up his whole week.

"I only rode two of my own boards this week,' said Josh '... and I haven't ridden them for over a year. I've been riding everybody elses boards and then today I jumped on a board that I'd never even seen before... (laughing) .... It was a 6'0" and I've only been riding 5'8"s, 5'6"s and 5'5"s for months...it was strange riding 'normal' boards this week and I certainly wasn't prepared for the contest (laughing again) but I've enjoying riding them again."

It was Kerseys first ever WQS win. He's won plenty of air shows but never a CT or a WQS. He said later he only came over to the West because Rusty were one of the Sponsors and he'd come over to hang out and have fun. He did all that, hung out, had fun and won the whole damn thing.

Peter 'Joli' Wilson

Last Minute Gasps at the Drug Aware Pro

2010-04-20T12:50:00.006+10:00

Here's a little update from the west.
The 'situation' of the day were the last minute gasps. A bit like last night when I was stopped for a random breath test by the local cops. I passed and so did a lot of guys today. So many last gasp waves. Adrian Buchan nailed one in the last seconds and Josh Kerr snuck past Mick Fanning in their Round of 16. The funny thing is that Josh has beaten Mick twice in this contest; once in the 4 man heats of the Round of 96 and again in the man on man rounds. Air specialist Kerr was joking that Mick beat him in the Boost Air Show last weekend in Sydney and now he's beating him in a 'straight' WQS contest. Maybe it was the local red wine coursing through his veins courtesy of a Rusty sponsors dinner that helped scrap through.

Today was a morning of convoys. The word went out that North Point was sure to be going off...a bit like St Patricks day. Hire cars in packs of 4 or 5 were darting all over the place. North Point was packed at first light but the little dirt car park was jammed with locals utes and 4WD's. No hire cars, they were still on the roads looking for a decent wave.
The swell was definitely 'pumping', somewhere in the 12' range, but way too south for most of the breaks. A lot of the crew ended up back at the contest watching the action and in the words of one of the surfers... "when the Gudangs (Gudauskas Bros) can't find waves then there aren't any around.'

Cory Lopez got everyone 'moo'ing' today. He caught a triple overhead bomb and proceeded to try to emulate Tom Curren's mid 80's wave. Margs was huge when Curren caught a wave and rode it over 250 yards to the river mouth of Margaret River. Cory came very close today, pumping his board at the end but with about 30 yards to go the wave backed off and he had to kick out. The surfers in the competitors tent were all up and riding the wave with him and the event commentators were yelling and laughing as Cory tried to make the river mouth.

While Cory was going for glory Sunny Garcia was hiding from the public. He'd tried to pull in on a huge right and got blasted for his trouble. The resulting wipeout disrobed him and tore two fins out of his board.
Sunny was stuck in the channel calling for the jet ski while scrambling to get his trunks back from the end of his leg rope. He was joking about it later and laughed when the cold water jokes came out.

Who's on form... CJ, Taj, Bede and Cory. Heat of the Round on paper was Josh Kerr and Mick Fanning while the heat to watch was Sunny Garcai and Neco Padaratz. They hadn't met since Pipeline in 2008. This time it was Sunny coming out on top. The swell's dropping and they'll crown a champ tomorrow.

Peter 'Joli' Wilson

Margaret River turns it on for the Drug Aware Pro

2010-03-17T13:10:00.003+10:00

The pics of the boys smiling at the press conference is because they have
all been lent brand new 4WD Lexus Hybrids to cruise down from Perth to
Margaret's and go bush bashing for the week.
Parko, Bede, Mick Fanning and Occy, who is just here to do stuff for Fuel TV
were all handed the keys...what was Lexus thinking.
The press conference was pretty funny. Government officials, who are the
main sponsors, were trying to be cool and 'surf speak'. 'Pumping' was the word
of the day. Everyone tried to use it in context and almost got it right. I
was waiting for 'cowabunger' to pop out considering the Margaret River
region is hosting the CowParade an outdoor art display. 80 life size 3D cow
canvases 'grazing' a places all over the region. Some pretty fun 'cows' out
there including a 'CowaBunga...Hang a Hoof' on the roof of the local pub.
It will be pumping this week. Wednesday suppose to be good and Friday is
supposed to be triple overhead.
Big pack of girls down here including Alana Blanchard......the tour misses
her. Maybe she should have been given a special wildcard or we could all
hope she re-qualifies for 2011.
Dave Macaulay's daughter is doing well here. She is only 17 years old and
ripped her heats . Dad was sitting in the channel caddying for her and was beaming
after she won her heat.

That's about it...except I nearly hit a kangaroo this morning heading to the
contest. Just hopped out in front of the car. Yeah they do hang in the
streets and the highways here in OZ.

Peter Joli Wilson

Parko heads to the pointy end

2009-09-08T16:28:00.003+10:00

Well we’re half way through the year and Parko is the runaway leader on the ASP World Tour. This is probably stating the obvious and if you applied the same scenario to Kelly Slater this time last year then Parko’s first world title would be a matter of ‘when’ and not ‘if’.

Bounce this around the number crunches who follow the ASP world tour and the word is that Parko’s title is not necessarily a certainty. Basically there are five World tour events to go, four back to back over the next eight weeks and ‘anything could happen’.

When Joel won in J-Bay one of the first guys to congratulate him after all the media had disappeared was his good mate Mick Fanning. Mick had been in a similar position to Joel two years earlier and he just gave his friend a big hug and said. “Just one step closer mate.”
It was almost as if Mick had conceded that this was going to be another of the ‘Cooly Kids’ chance to hold up the World Title trophy even though Mick, who is rated at #7, is still in the mix for this years title race.

The main contenders are probably the Hobgood twins, Taj Burrow and Adriano de Souza. Bobby Martinez would have to be considered an outsider and Kelly who is in the Top 10, but I his own words figures he could be still in the race with a ‘…. mathematical outside chance.’, but not a lot of people are giving him this chance. Beware of the underdog you ask? Well he’s definitely that but the wheels would really have to fall off a few guys’ campaigns ahead of him to even give him a sniff.

Will this be Parko’s year? There was an injury scare out of Bali with Parko hurting his ankle. Team Parko have down played the injury via Twitter and blogs on his website but there haven’t been many sightings for the past few weeks. Could have a lot to do with the lack of surf on the Gold Coast. We’ve been getting summer Northerlies in winter. It’s a few days into Spring but the surf hasn’t improved much. There have been almost no waves since the end of July on the Gold Coast. Other Ct surfers have been around but they have also been going stir crazy because of the conditions.

The Hurly Pro, Event #6 on this years tour, is only four days away and you can bet a lot of the Gold Coast crew are already in California trying to get a few waves at Trestles because they haven’t been getting any at home.
Will this be Parko’s year? It certainly seems like it at the moment. He’s being in such consistent form since late last year. The 2008 Triple Crown is testament to that and three wins out of five events is nothing to be sneezed at.
I’m hitting the road in a few days time with six weeks of contests through Europe on the itinerary. Will I get a shot of Parko holding that world title trophy above his head in the next six weeks… I certainly hope so.

Joli On Safari

2009-08-03T17:01:00.010+10:00

Just returned from a successful trip to Jeffrey's Bay in South Africa. Great surf for the Billabong Pro with a strong win for Joel Parkinson but not a lot of great free surfing. Missed a swell by a few days and then hung around after the contest waiting for two bumps on the Surfline swell maps. One came and went without much activity while the second bump provided plenty of surf in the 2 metre range with over 60mm of rain. Not ideal shooting weather. Shaun Tomson was on hand for the second swell but with overcast skies and more rain I ended up heading to the game reserves of Shamwari and Pumba to shoot four legged animals instead of the usual two legged surfing variety.
Got nice and close to lots of animals including hippos, elephants, rhinos and lions.
The scary thing was that a lioness took a liking to our open Landrover and charged us. Came within a metre of leaping into the truck. Scared the hell out of everyone including our ranger, who hightailed it through the bush to get away.

One of the elephants got nice and friendly too. Gave us a little 'don't argue' when we got a bit close but it all makes for some interesting photos.

Arrived home to Coolangatta to beautiful winter days and no decent surf. Bells Beach pumped on the weekend but my bags need to stay unpacked for a few days.

Environmental Impact at Coolangatta: Man Made vs Climate Change with Joel Parkinson.

2009-04-10T15:23:00.006+10:00

Kirra Point is the northern limit of the fabled Coolangatta, Queensland's most southeastern town and the home of a long line of "Coolie" surfing legends such as Rabbit Bartholomew, Peter ‘PT’ Townsend, Michael ‘MP’ Peterson and the new Coolie Kids, Mick Fanning, Dean Morrison and Joel Parkinson.

On Australia’s National Day, January 26^th 2009, more than 1500 surfers gathered for a protest paddle out. Their mission was to bring public awareness to the fact that the fabled Kirra Point had all but disappeared due to sand pumping from the mouth of the Tweed River just a few kilometers south.

The protesting surfers formed the outline of a map of Australia and drew media recognition from all around the world for their plight.

In days gone by a long lethal ribbon of sand was responsible for Kirra's supertube magic. Swells used to hit the sandbar at a 45-degree angle and suck their way with increasing intensity toward a small groyne off the Surf club and sometimes even past it.

When the sand was right it was literally sectionless, the barrel forming and reforming like some sort of incredible moving version of a wave machine. Large volumes of water ran down the outside rim of the sandbar, which made paddling back out a grueling proposition; many experienced Kirra surfers just got out of the water at a ride's finish and jogged back along the rim of the point to the jump-off point.

The loss of Kirra Point has been caused by an excessive build-up of sand that has been pumped and dredged into the Coolangatta Bay over the past 12 years. In this time there have been relatively low levels of storm activity and the sand has not naturally made its way north at the same speed at which it was placed in the bay.

An increase in the level of sand in the bay by 3–4 metres on average has resulted in a significant widening of the beaches, in some cases by over 150m, the loss of surf quality and an increase in rips

Currently the sand flow has moved slowly from Coolangatta Bay and into Kirra Beach, which now resembles a desert oasis and a 400-metre walk to the waters edge. After 6 years of sand pumping only 1/8 of the volume has moved north along Gold Coast beaches with the majority of sand volume lodged at Coolangatta and more so at Kirra and especially North Kirra. It’s the biggest pile-up of sand ever seen from Kirra to North Kirra, yet the sand continues to be pumped from the main outlet at Lovers Rock, Point Danger just north of D-bah beach.

This sand pumping issue is not one caused by Climate Change but a man made problem which current ASP world # 1 Joel Parkinson considers to be the main environmental issue facing his hometown beaches.

‘Sand pumping,’ says Joel, ‘they’re dammed if they do it and dammed if they don’t. We’ll never have Kirra and Snapper working at the same time while they continue to pump sand. Why are they even pumping sand?’ he asks.

The original reason sand pumping was put in place was to keep the Tweed River mouth clear of sand so that the local fishing fleet and pleasure craft could cross the sandbar safely. Despite nearly 12 years of dredging and pumping the bar has never been completely clear. Joel jokes that he saw Occy score one of the best barrels he’s ever seen ridden at the bar earlier this year.

Despite Parko considering the sand pumping as the major environmental threat to his surf breaks Climate Change has had an effect on the southern Gold Coast beaches. In late May this year a massive storm ripped apart the beaches causing some of the worst beach erosion in 40-50 years.

Gold Coast beaches from D-Bah in the south all the way to Surfers Paradise in the north suffered massive erosion. The ironic thing was that Kirra and Coolangatta had little damage and the massive sand build up from the sand pumping refused to budge. In the aftermath of the storm the local council used the Kirra sand to replenish some of the destroyed beaches.

‘It was cool they were able to use some of the excess sand to replenish the other beaches after that big storm hit, commented Parko, ‘… but I reckon at some stage they will run out of sand to pump.’

‘They’ve dumped a shit load of sand at D-bah and it hasn’t helped the erosion one little bit. It’s the worst I’ve seen it in all the time I’ve lived there.’

The May storm destroyed the bank at Snapper, exposing rocks and causing deep holes just off the beach.

‘There’s a hole the size of an Olympic swimming pool out the back of Snapper right now that will take a lot of sand to fill up,’ says Joel. ‘We wont even get Snapper back until that fills up. Climate Change is having a huge effect on our beaches and I don’t know what’s going to happen … they’re going to run out of sand to pump pretty soon. The beaches to the south of the sand pumping jetty are eroding too. What are they going to do? Pump sand south?’

As Joel said earlier there doesn’t seem to be one solution to the environmental damage being caused to the Coolangatta beaches. The authorities are dammed if the do pump sand or dammed if they don’t.

Parko reckons, ‘They just need to stop pumping for awhile and let nature settle things down, but we are either going to have Kirra or Snapper but we are never going to have both breaks at the same time.’

AS this piece was being written, during the Euro leg of the WCT world tour, Parko got news that, ‘The boys were scoring little low tide barrels behind the Rock at Snapper’. He just laughed when he heard the claim because he reckons it’ll take a long time before either bank, Kirra or Snapper is back to it’s best after the May storm.

Peter 'Joli" Wilson