Trip 31
May/June 2001

Wednesday 23rd May
Day 1

After a long day of sitting on planes and waiting at airports we finally arrived on the Trader just after sunset. Albert the Captain called to pull anchor and we set sail. By morning we should be there to hopefully awaken to some sick pits.

I'm pretty sure there's no better way to wake up in the morning than to see perfect surf, and that's exactly what happened. It was going off. 4 to 6 foot with the odd bigger set and some of the waves that I caught and saw today were dead set perfect, not a drop of water out of place. I put in a pretty big effort for the first day, I surfed for about 3 hours for my first session then backed it up with about a 5 hour session only because it just got better and better all day. We had lots of sun and a little bit of rain and hardly any wind all day. We ate like kings and now I'm just about to hit the sack because I can hardly keep my eyes open. Looking forward to getting shacked of my head again tomorrow.

Friday 25th May
Day 3

We stayed the night and were up early only to find that it was onshore. It stayed onshore for most of the day, until about 3 in the afternoon it went glassy. The swell was still there, 4 to 6 foot but unfortunately today didn't even come close to how good yesterday was, but we all got a couple of fun ones but nothing epic. The sun went down and we made the decision to more on. It should only take 3 to 4 hours to get there so we'll be there for the morning session.

Saturday 26th May
Day 4

I woke up early after having a terrible sleep due to it raining all night and the sound of water poring off the roof kept me up. Well it was still dark and it seemed on this Saturday morning the weekenders were out in force, there were about 10 guys in the line up. So I decided to have some breakfast and check it all out for a bit. It only got more crowded whilst I was having breakie so I just kept an eye on it and around 10 it thinned out so I hit it. The waves were an inconsistent 4 to 5 foot and the funniest I think a left hander could be for me. A couple of tubes and backside cracks a million. Some good footage from the land and the water, we had it all. A big lunch was to follow and then a little lie down to combat the heat.

I don't think there's a better way to finish a day than to have a sick session. It was a little onshore but so fun, 4 to 5 foot and so beltable it wasn't funny. I had a great time, all the boys were shooting from the tin boat but the sun only showed it self for about 5 minutes but I think Horny might have been shooting black and white so it might turn out good anyway. Surfed till dark then everyone went in. I love this place!

Up early again only to find the swell had dropped a so we decided to move on south. We did a bit of fishing on the way but didn't have any luck. About 2 hours later we checked a place out and it looked pretty bad and onshore but good old captain Albert said around the other side could be good, so off we motored. From a distant it looked pretty small and super fast but we pulled up and the cook (Micko) and I paddle out to see if it was worth staying or not. Well after about half an hour I had about 5 or 6 sick stand up pits and I think one of them was one of the best waves I've ever had in my life, so it didn't take long to make the decision to stay. I don't really know how to describe this wave, maybe a reef version of Kirra, on the sets you take off and race as fast as you can in the pit and it lets you out most of the time, super hollow, it was lots of fun. It was cloudy most of the morning with the sun coming out just for a little bit around lunch so hopefully we would have scored some photo's. The tide dropped out pretty fast which made it very dangerous so we rapped it up and headed to the boat for some lunch and to wait for the tide to come back up. Lunch was excellent again! After lunch a huge storm blew in and it rained cats and dogs and turned onshore and all kinds of funny things were going on in the line up so the Captain made the call to head off into port to refuel and get permits all locked away with the local arthritis. Being a Sunday night it was roast lamb night and it was incredible. I think the plan is to refuel and then head back out for the morning. I can only hope it is going to be as good as today!

It was a bit of a travelling day today, but I seemed to get allot done as well. We started down south then we travelled north but it was really small with about 10 guys so we motored further. We had a bit of fishing action on the way, a Sail fish or Bill fish or even a Marlin. I got a look at it a couple of times when it was jumping in the air. The excitement only lasted about 2 minutes because we got spooled which means the fish was to big and there wasn't enough line on the reel and the beast just simply swum away with all our line. The captain said it would have bean about 150 kg fish, and from what I had seen it looked about 6 or 7 feet long….oh well maybe tomorrow. When we arrived at the left the wind was pretty strong so Mick and I made a little run to this little right hander on the other side of the bay but that wasn't very good either. So then it was time for lunch which was as good as ever. After lunch I went for a scuba dive with Pav, Horny, and Craig the Reef Check man. We did a little reef check and all was looking pretty good, lots of fish everywhere and little bits of coral around. In the afternoon the waves got pretty good, super glassy and some really nice tubes. It was only small about 3 to 4 foot on the sets. I surfed till dark and we had the most incredible sunset, it was a great way to finish off the day. Well that's what I thought until later on that night. I'll paint the picture for you - about 5 km away is the nearest safe anchorage over night. So on dark we left and made our way over to anchor for dinner. Earlier that afternoon the Tracks charter rocked up. Richard Lovett, Luke Stedman, and a hole bunch of others. So after dinner the cook and Mick make up this big plan to go egg their boat. So we loaded up the tin boat with egg and flour bombs and we hear a tin boat coming from somewhere in the dark and it's a couple of the boys coming over to say g'day, so we let them have it. Then the war began, so they took off back to their boat but we were right behind them. All their tin boat did was take us to the mother ship but the others were ready for us and we ended up having a great little war. Their mother ship got so worked it wasn't funny, 150 eggs and about 50 flour bombs. I think we came away with the win! One for the Indies'. It was the funniest night that I've had in a long time. Pav's got the video and it's even funnier then I remember.

After the egg fight last night we pulled anchor and started to head north. In the morning we found a small, 3 foot break and since it was such a nice day with a light offshore and sunny we ended up surfing for a couple of hours. Horny shot from the water and said he got a couple of shots so we were all happy. After the surf we hung out at this tiny island which was so cool. We did another reef check and it was unreal, heaps of fish and live coral and it was great to have another scuba dive. After the reef check we motored on, still heading north. I'm just about to go to sleep and we are still motoring so we are going to be in a whole new place in the morning.

After travelling all night we arrived to a new group of Islands, lots of waves everywhere and no one to be seen. We drove around a little and then came across the left hander. It was long wave that had a big end section that bends in at you, there were a couple of barrels but mostly just belts. It was probably the sunniest day we've had. My back is so sunburnt it because Horny kept on making me take me T-shirt off so he could see the boardies better in the shots. All the photographers were pretty stoked with the morning session. Around lunch after our 3 hour surf we had a couple of the local boys come out in there little canoe boats trying to sell us fish. One of them had a Sail fish which was about 6 foot long, god only knows how they got it into the boat! All the other boys had a surf in the afternoon but I was pretty burnt out and the glare was really bad and it wasn't half as good as what the morning was so I gave it a miss. After everyone had finished surfing it was time to move on, again in the north direction. We had another crazy sunset which topped off a great day all round.

Friday 1st June
Day 10

We travelled most of the night and in the morning we arrived at a break. For most of the morning the wind was shitty so we all just sat around and did basically nothing. After lunch we all hit it but as soon as we jumped in it started to rain which lasted for about an hour so Horny couldn't shoot from the tin boat but Pav was under cover on the land and got a couple of nice shots. We surfed for a good couple of hours but it didn't seem to get any better. Anyway the call is to stay here for the night because there's a swell predicted and it could but pretty good tomorrow if it picks up a couple of feet. Tomorrow being our last day, I hope we score something good.

Well our last day was a bit of a disappointment. Unfortunately, we stayed the night at that right hander but in the morning it was onshore and the swell had dropped so we decided to go to the left on the other side of the Island. Halfway there the wind swung around and was onshore there to. To cut a long story short we didn't surf all day and we motored from 8am in the morning till 6pm at night. We got a couple of fish which we had for dinner which were unbelievable. So we've got the night in port then early tomorrow we start our long way home.