It had been a miserable summer so far in Melbourne. Cold, lots of rain and worst of all no wind. Our Western Oz trip couldn’t have come soon enough. The plan was 3 weeks away. I had decided to team up with good mate Craig (Spotty) and take to the open road and drive west, rather than fly. Driving over had its benefits . The best part of driving was not having to worry about excess baggage. Which is normally a big problem with flying. I almost took this as a challenge and packed as much equipment as possible. On the other hand the drive normally takes 3 days from Melbourne to Perth.
Windsurfing gear: Board, 5 sails, 3 masts, 2 booms. Kiting gear, and my SUP, (9’6” MacTavish.) Add that to, camping gear, cooking, camera equipment, and all of Spotty’s gear, and we where fully loaded!
We finally hit the road at about 2.30pm Wednesday the 22nd of December. Escaping the Melbourne traffic and cursing along the high way. We put in a good effort that night, driving for almost 12 hours, making it about 1 hour out of Port Augusta SA. The next morning we got going early and continued West towards the Nullarbor. We were chasing the sun, so it was hard to keep track of time. It was a long day, Im not even sure how many hours we drove for in total. That night we made it well in to WA about 2 hours of out Norsman, before finding a truck stop and pulling in passing out in the back of the van.
Christmas day, we woke up and cooked a big breakfast on the Barbie and ate until we couldn’t eat any more. Sat around relaxing for an hour or so before we noticed the wind picking up, time to get wet!
It looked like the place to be was Fourths beach. I rigged a 5.0m, Spotty a 5.8m
By the end of the day it was firing, I was fully powered and the jumps were awesome! Great way to spend Christmas day.
Once again it was windy! 25 knots swell was head to about ¾ mast high. Again, perfect! Had an awesome sail, massive jumps, big back loops and some fun wave rides. The beer in the Coro’s car park tasted particular good that night!
We headed back to the caravan park in town and cooked a bbq, and re-cap on the days events.
The next 2 days we did exactly what we did the day before. Couldn’t ask for much more really! Finishing up with New Years Eve. Which was kicked off with a 20L container of fresh Majito’s.
New Year Day brought with it a hang over, new swell and 25 – 30knots. Sunset beach was breaking with waves up to ¾ mast high. So we rigged up in front of our tents and campers and walked the 80m to the water.
Great day, the wind swung a little off shore towards the end of the day which cleaned the waves up. Welcome 2011!
Unfortunately there was a tropical cyclone up North off the coast, and as usual this heated up the temps on the WA coast and killed the wind. We decided it was best to make our escape and head South. Back to Lancelin for the night, again no wind there either, hot and humid. The forecast for the week was not looking good…
The next 4 days were basically a right off. We hung out in Perth in the cheapest hotel room we could find that had air conditioning. Finally on Thursday the wind looked like it was going to make its return, so we headed back to Lancelin.
Friday the 17th of Jan, was the start of the Ledge to Lancelin event (http://www.lancelinoceanclassic.com.au/)
Friday was the qualifying event for the Wave competition, Saturday was the Marathon race (Main event) and the Wave finals. In less than average conditions I floated out to the South Passage of Lancelin for my heat in the Open Wave qualifying. 5 – 10 knots cross-on with wave sets up to and sometimes over mast high. Not ideal.
In the 20min heat I managed to get 3 waves that’s all I had time for as the wind was so light I couldn’t move around the beak any quicker. The first 2 waves were about ¾ mast high, the 3rdwas just over mast high, pretty scary with no wind!
Somehow I managed to score highly enough and progressed through to the next round. Saturday brought more wind than the day before. By the time the Marathon race started it was about 20 – 25 knots. 300 sailors lined up at ledge point for the start if the world longest ocean race. Quite a spectacular view, helicopters in the sky, TV cameras everywhere and hundreds of people on the beach watching. Spotty had a great start off the beach but unfortunately his new boom exploded before the first mark. Race over.
Later on the wind turned a little more off shore things started looking good! The final for the Open wave comp was set to start at 6.30pm. I went out for a quick burn around to test the wind strength at about 6, I felt pretty comfortable on a 5.3m most people felt the same. 6.30 the final started a 20min round. Once we were out the back of the wave break we all discovered that it was much winder than we expected! I should have been on a 4.7m I was well over powered!
This made landing tricks hard, so I didn’t go for many I was having way too much fun catching waves! I got about 6 waves, I had some great turns and even got some aerials. Way too much fun! Unfortunately being too over powered and not jumping cost me, and I didn’t place in the final.
Later on that night we found our self’s at the Endeavor Tavern, official watering hole of the event. Many drinks were drunk by many people. It was a great night! Followed by the after party, which didn’t finish up until the sun came up about 5.30am.
Sunday - Hung-over we packed up and headed out of Lano south to Perth. The trip was almost over. Early Monday we woke up at a mates place in Cottesloe and headed off back to Esperance, as the forecast was looking good for the afternoon. 8 hours later when we arrived at 9mile beach we found a good breeze but not a lot of swell, only about chest to head high in the sets. We still went out and for our final WA sail.
After sailing we packed it in, got the van sorted and hit the road headed for Melbourne. That night we made it about 2 hours out of Norsman still in WA. Up as early as we could the next day and drove all day, we made it to Port Wakefield SA, about 2 hours out of Adelaide. Drive home day 3 we pushed on into Vico only get stopped by some flooded roads just out of Horsham.
The final day was a killer, so close, yet so far from home, we finally made it into the Melbourne by about 6.30pm. Massive journey, back to the real world!
