JP AUSTRALIA and the start of a new business..

The 2013 SUP season is about to begin.... With Noosa Festival of Surfing and Australian Longboard Open coming up in March!

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to surf and meet the main man from JP Australia..Jason Polakow! Such a great experience to meet the man behind the brand I ride for! :)

Jason Polakow and myself! FROTH

After the success of the last few paddle meets, and positive feedback from fellow paddlers - I've decided to run with the flow and start a paddle business.  The name has been decided and logos are being developed at the moment! Im hoping to create womens social paddle groups, one on one, nutrition and racing technique as well as surfing.  Keeping the positibe energy flowing and hopefully it will succeed!

what a year!

Well 2012 is almost done and dusted!

What a quick year but so much happened.... Moving to Lennox Head, Flying to Hawaii to compete in the Olu Kai Race, changing to an international sup sponsor, as well as pciking up 2 extra sponsors.. not to mention starting a social paddle group and meeting new people and making new friends.

Its been great to start up a social paddle group with my close friend Anna. We have had a number of successful events and numbers continue to grow. Its great to introduce SUP to so many different people.

Cudgen Creek Meet Up

Its been a challening year with a few mixed contest results. I had some great comps and also some terrible ones... Im hoping to take it all in as a positive learning curve and allow myself to prepare for the 2013 season. With new equipment to start the year.. I have a little bit of time to get use to my new board .. 8'6 JP Asutralia. This board is the full carbon model. I'm looking forward to testing it out and hopefully some great results for 2013!

Lennox Head SUP Meet Up

After being in Lennox now for 5 months, I decided it was time to create a MEETUP for fellow paddlers in and around the northern rivers. Last weekend saw the first paddle meet up at Lake Ainsworth.  It was great to meet some fellow paddlers from around the region and have a paddle around the lake!  My friend Anna has also created a MeetUp group for the Gold Coast.

The nest meet up will be held at Brunswick Heads on the 27 October! :)

 

 

 

 

Queensland State SUP Titles

After the cancellation of the QLD Sup Titles back in June, a new date was set for the 7 July. The day before, Geoff Breen and myself headed to the Alley for a warm up session. We stumbled across fellow sup'er and frother - Justin Holland.

It was small, clean but challenging due to the strong offshore winds. The day of the comp turned out to be better than expected. Light offshores and about 2-3ft of swell.  Dogman even came up for the comp, and ended up commentating the hole event.... (he's found his true calling!)

As the comp got underway, the conditions stayed clean and offshore and before long my heat was in the water. The waves were small but clean and the bank at Lacey's was just perfect! Long right handers..  On my final wave I remember seeing this dark shadow under me, it was a huge stingray! I took it as a good omen, as he followed me along the wave! I made my heat and progressed to the Open Women's Final with Shakira, Ali, and Ang.

me during the final

The boys were ripping! Its so great to watch them, and try and learn from them. As time went on, the conditions still stayed offshore and it was time for our final. The bank was better than before, and i felt so at home. Laceys is one of my favourite sup spots and have many sessions out there! We had some magic waves and managed to get a combined total of 10.10. Shak was surfing so well, and at the end we found out there was less than .5 between us.It was close, and I'm stoked to have come that close to such a good surfer. We're both off to the Aussie Titles now... :)

(photos from Surfing Queensland)

Justin Holland Sup Camp- HPC Australia

Surfing Australia in conjuction with Justin Holland put together a 2 day Sup Surf Clinic...

I'm currently on day 1 and it has been a great experience. The knowledge provided by the guys at Surfing Australia and Justin is great! We surfed for nearlly 2 hours and would have every wave on video... the critiquing was great and you walked away with wanting to learn so much more....
Hopefully day 2 will be better surf, as today was onlt 1 -2 feet... but we tried hard with what we had on offer!!

Surf season has begun...with a BANG!

Winter is here!!!! Like most parts of the world....winter brings the best conditions here! Its offshore almost all day and pumping south swells from the Tasman Sea come up the coast with fresh sw/se winds. This year we have already had 2 big low pressure systems creating 10-12ft sets... It was way to big for me!!!

I was lucky to get out between the 2 swells with a few other sup surfers Jackson Close, Geoff Breen, and the Dogman out at the Alley. 2-3ft only a handful of guys out... The waves weren't perfect but they were offshore and peeling 100m+ down the bank...

Once the big swells settled down, the points at Lennox Head were firing. We were so lucky to have a near perfect 3ft surf with less than 5 people out... This was an arvo session I wont forget in a while... Perfect lines at Lennox with no one... After a few hours I was placed on filming duty as you can see!

Hawaii 2012

Ahhhh hawaii!

This pic is of my good friend Suzie Cooney and I taking off on a Maliko run....

I flew into Maui back in May this year to be greeted with epic downwind conditions... 35-40 mph with ocean swell! It was amazing.... long glides and fast!

I had flown to Maui to compete in the 4th Annual Olu Kai race. The week leading up to the race was amazing with some of the best downwind sup conditions I have ever seen!
Race day was hard, no wind and no swell - but I was still happy to place 1st in the 14ft 30-39 division for the 2nd year in a row!

I highly recommend this race to anyone who likes downwind paddling!!! Maui is such a special place to me, and all the Maui crew have made it such a special place for me :)