"INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY" SIGNING OFF FROM PORTUGAL

My world wakes with a massive hang over, and the taste of victory in my mouth. Funny how victory tastes a little like spew this morning. I bid you farewell. Cheers iMOM All spectacular photos Dan Warbrick

INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY - AN EXPECTANT FATHER

Surf Coast Sizzle's "International Man of Mystery" Wes Schaftenaar is like an expectant father, nervously pacing the beach and chewing his nails, during Owen Wright's heats, at the Rip Curl Pro Search in Portugal. Imagine what his real dad Rob feels like. Owen got flogged, burst an ear drum, and injured his neck during his quarter final heat against Damien Hobgood. He was taken to hospital in Lisbon. Will he be OK to surf his semi against Mick Fanning? Only time will tell. Wes of course, had a lot to do with gromet Owen, when he was Australian team manager at Rip Curl.

TERRORISTS HIT TOWN!

To check out contest vert ramp see August 09 "WARD'S WORLD" blog

TAKE ME TO WARD'S WORLD

SURF PHOTOGRAPHERS FOGGED IN!

What do you do when you're on location, at a WCT event, and fog rolls in and blankets the the beach?

Pull up a bean bag and enjoy sponsors coffee and croissants, of course!

Former Surf Coast photographer Peter "Joli" Wilson, flanked by photographers, Jeff Flindt and Jack English. Photo "Mrs Joli"

RANDOM PORTUGAL

Mushy on Portugal:

I rate the area really high for waves. There's always somewhere with swell, and heaps of the angles to the coast for good winds.

Comparisons..pretty good variety of waves here, so some are similar to home. The left from round 1 was similar to the one in the Canaries that I won last year. The water is pretty nice, a lot warmer than usual. Sweet in a short arm or steamer.

I'd definitely come back to get supertubes on, coz that place looks so good.

I've been staying with all the Quiksilver guys and I've just been hanging and surfing with them. Belly has hooked us up with a pretty nice house.

Food.. we have had a chef with us at the Quik pad so haven't eaten out much. It's usually really hard to find meals with veggies here so its amazing to have a dude cooking for us.

Can never go wrong with a Sunset. No matter where you are.

A pot of gold up for grabs.

Mushy and the Anchor Man stare down.

Photographer, Dan Warbrick, no matter what gear he uses, takes a great photo.

Wes Schaftenaar "International Man of Mystery" with giant killer Owen Wright. Can win this event!

Scotty Hargraves and a private conversation.

The brains trust, chowin' down. L-R Gary Dunne, Neil Ridgway, Arna Campbell & Claw, restraining himself from his trademark jump and hand rubbing.

Turn left at the tree that looks like a dog, then right at the dog that looks like a tree. Got it guys?

Thinking, thinking.

Former WCT surfer, now jetski driver, Phillip Island's Glyndon "Ringa" Ringrose

JT hard at work, Hmm, looks like he's just had a surf to me.

B1 at the entrance of crazy town.

Photos: Wes Schaftenaar

ANOTHER 17th IN PORTUGAL FOR MUSHY

The heat started slow with both surfers throwing down scores around the two mark.

Martinez snags a barrel on his forehand and gets the first real heat score of 6.50.

Mushy falls on his next two waves.

With around 12 minutes remaining Martinez finds another forehand barrel and scores 7.67.

Mushy's in combo-land.

Martinez holds priority. Mushy paddles deeper looking for a right. The previous heat Bede Durbidge scored an 8.67

on a great right hand barrel. Nothing seems to be working in Mushys favour. A quick in and out right.

Back on the lefts he picks off what looks like a great wave. First turn, throws up a critical upside down vert reo

and quickly into another, but unfortunately his back foot slips. Scores 3.97 essentially for one turn.

This wave would have put him back in contention if a little bit of luck had been on his side.

Picks off another left but doesn't offer much scoring potential. 3.67 for two turns.

With Martinez holding priority, Mushy resorts to a successful Slater tactic, and sneak waves under opposition priority.

Time runs out, in what was a slow heat for good waves.

Another 17th for Mushy's collection.

BIG SWELL CAUSES HAVOC AT SEARCH WCT CONTEST SITE

The highly anticipated swell has arrived here in Peniche, smack bang on time causing havoc.

Accompanied by strong onshore winds and higher tides, the swell smashed everything in it’s path at the Super Tubes contest site. It’s like a mini tsunami has hit. Taking down half the event site with it. Three tone containers on the beach were shifted effortlessly by the powerful swell surged.

Event management, local council work force and anyone willing to lend a hand, have been busy cleaning up and moving everything to higher ground as the tide and swell are expected to once again cause problems later on today.

While all this is going on, back at the backup site, it's a little more under control and it looks likely that the first round will get under way this afternoon or tomorrow. Surfers took advantage of jet ski's to do a bit of tow-in.

Check out more images and footage posted on http://www.live.ripcurl.com/ in the next 24 hours.

Graphic trashed site image: http://surfermag.com/photos/flash/storm_destroys_rip_curl_contest_site/

Checking out,

Wes Schaftenaar

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar

The clean up begins Photo: Wes Schaftenaar

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar

Back up site Photo: Dan Warbrick

Mick Fanning Photo: Dan Warbrick

Mick Fanning Photo: Dan Warbrick

Mick Fanning Photo: Dan Warbrick

Mick Fanning Photo: Dan Warbrick

STRAPPER SURF SK8 SERIES

The second of five Strapper Surf SK8 Series event was held in Torquay on Sunday 18th October.

Frothing micro groms everywhere watching the older crew smashin' it.

Over 100 spectators and 40 compeditors through out the course of the arvo.

With out the support of sponsors, events like these don't happen.

Thanks to:

Strapper Surf

City of Greater Geelong

Element

Blunt Skateboarding

Dragon

Folklore

Christian Surfers

Modus

Surf Coast Shire

THE WAITING GAME IN PORTUGAL

With the trials done and dusted, the event is ready to go!

Unfortunately the waves didn't come to the party for an immediate start.

The whole place is buzzing in anticipation on the arrival of a big swell to eventually kick-off the event.

There are two swells being talked about at the moment, the first being six meters of open ocean due to hit tomorrow, and the following is five meter due for the weekend. So there will be no shortage of size. If the winds cooperate we should see plenty of action here at the Search CT in the first half of the waiting period.

I caught up with Surf Coast local "Mushy", former world champ, Mick Fanning and Ben Dunn the other day, and even though conditions have been small so far, they said they have been getting amongst it. They have also been busy getting their big wave quivers organized in anticipation of the big swells.

"Mushy" is pumped, and can't wait to sample a few barrels that "Super Tubos" has to offer. He's also more than ready, to shake off his string of 17^th place finishes. Hopefully the Surfcoast local can "break on through to the other side" Good luck Mushy.

Check out the Rip Curl Pro Search webcast LIVE via live.ripcurl.com

Wes Schaftenaar

Mushy & Dunny and extra's Photo: Zac Goates / Wes Schaftenaar

Nothing happening here. Photo: Zac Goates / Wes Schaftenaar

Juc with Spring Creek development in background. Photo: Dan Warbrick

Just like Juc, with fishing boats. Photo: Dan Warbrick

Grid lock. Photo: Dan Warbrick

Got nothing here. Photo: Dan Warbrick

Battle stations. Photo: Dan Warbrick

Waiting, waiting, waiting. Photo: Dan Warbrick

MY BIG OPPORTUNITY TO BECOME FAMOUS! Jayco Herald Sun Tour rides through Torquay.

In between rain showers, I scoped the route that the riders would be taking. I finally set myself up, camera in hand on Combes Road and waited for the arrival of the "JAYCO HERALD SUN TOUR". Who knows, I might be the lucky one to get that scoop shot of a rider coming-a-gutsa at high speed, on a slippery wet road. A tangle of bloodied riders and mangled bikes. You know, the front page kinda stuff.

There was a steady procession of Police, officials and team cars streaming past, heading towards Torquay as the tour got closer. I became anxious. This could be the big one! I thought to myself.

As if to signal the arrival of the tour, the sun came out, the road dried up, and before I knew it, the first of the leaders of the tour went cruising past, no acknowledgment that I was standing all alone in at the side of the road to immortalize them with my trusty camera at the ready. Hmm! The rest of the riders followed moments later. Sure, I got a few looks from this lot, you know the kind of "What the?" And then it was all over. Oh well, there's always next year.

THE RIP CURL PRO SEARCH WCT PORTUGAL

Hello Surf Coast,

Wes Schaftenaar checking in from Portugal at the site of the next WCT event "The Rip Curl Pro Search"

I arrived in Peniche Tuesday night and have been working on the two contest sites which both look incredible. Scotty Hargreavres and his event crew have been on the ground here for some weeks making sure the logistics of an event of this scale are all coming together. The whole set up is sure to impress with up to 100,000 fans to come through Peniche to check out the worlds best male and female surfers in what is shaping up to be a dramatic Title race.

Walking on site is like rocking up to the formula 1 Grand Prix along pit lane, the stands and setup is something else. The live web and live TV broadcast to Fuel USA and OZ, Eurosport sent to millions of viewers around the globe is sure to impress.

Spot "X" has been small but as you will see from the photo’s it’s a pretty epic set up. The back up location is also looking good but completely different from the waves at Spot "X" and only a couple of km's down the rd.

I caught up with Mushy and Ben Dunn last night and checked them into the hotel after there eight hour drive from Mundaka. They where stopped randomly at the boarder crossing and the car was searched with sniffer dogs and they had to take everything out of the car and the 30 odd boards off the roof which you can imagine they where really happy about.

There is a solid swell showing up on the maps for mid next week so log onto ripcurl.com/live to check out all the live action from the search CT Peniche, Portugal.

http://www.live.ripcurl.com/?home

Wes Schaftenaar

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar / Zak Goats

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar / Zak Goats

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar / Zak Goats

Photo: Wes Schaftenaar / Zak Goats

A BLAST FROM THE PAST “THE BIRTH OF A SURFING MAGAZINE”

“AUSTRALIA’S SURFING LIFE”

August 1985. Volume 1 No. 1

Cover shot: Gold Coast’s Todd Lee / Kirra barrel.

Magazine cost $2.50

"That Year"

Australia’s Tom Carroll won the ‘84/85 men’s World title.

From 20 events Carroll won the ones that really counted, 3. Tom Curren won 5, Barton Lynch won 4, Occy won 3.

USA’s Freida Zamba won the ‘84/85 wommen’s World title.

From 9 events Zamba won 3, Wendy Botha won 2, Jodie Cooper won 2.

Billabong Australian Amateur Titles in South Australia. Open won by Mark Sainsbury credited for inventing “The Floater”. Surf Coast local Greg Brown 4^th.

Juniors won by Matt Branson. Mornington Penninsular surfer Gary Taylor 3^{rd. (}Went on to win 1986 Quiksilver Trial at Bells)

Cadets won by Nicky Wood. (Went on to win 1986 Rip Curl Pro at Bells)

Surf Coast local Damien Bibic 5^th.

Main editorial features:

Tasmania. Story by Tim Bailey photos by Sean Davey.

Martin Potter profile by Trevor McKewen.

World title preview by Trevor McKewen.

Surfboard design by Murray Burton

Autumn Daze pictorial

Rabbit “The wizard of Oz” interview by Trevor McKewen

Bonza Birthday Bash. The Mango/Snapper Rocks Invitational Teams Classic wrap up. Won by Newport Plus team. By Trevor McKewen photos Marty Tullemans.

Brands Advertising:

Full page advertisers, Kuta Lines, Hot Tuna, Finch, Billabong.