Then we met the rest of the pro crew: The one and only Kong, Dylan "Dyldo" Longbottom, Beau Naughty Emerton and Asher Pacey, led by the illustrious surf photog "Swilly". They had been here for a week and the surf had been small (by their standards) and island fever was setting in. Allois assured us that a swell was on it's way, teasing us every morning with colour print-outs of the Surfline Swell forecast.

The 3-4 foot surf for the first couple of days kept me entertained, but I was starting to crave more. We soon realized that the waves got better each day, depending on how shitfaced we got the previous night.

Every night we'd start off at the local bars and dodge the unwanted advances of the fairly large local lasses.
"Hi! Are you married?" was the favoured pick-up line of the local chicks. At this point, you'd better run before you get eaten alive.

After emptying the tequila bottles and finishing all the beers in the Esky it was off another one of the bars on the Island for some mad Karaoke with MC Kong:

That's all I remember for the first few nights. Small fun surf and nights out on the piss. Oh yeah- I forgot, the fishing here was also a good way to pass the time when it wasn't 6 foot and barreling.

On our firstfishing expedition Benny hooked into a decent sized Tuna that put up a good fight. Before you could say "Fresh Sashimi" the bastard had given up so it was reeled in…. well, his head anyway. The rest of him was chomped by the big bloke in the gray suit.


The next morning we surfed a spot called Sonden's Rights, named after our legend guide.

We watched it for a minute before some decent 5-6 foot sets rolled in that reminded me of small Sunset Beach in Hawaii. My mate Rich got out there right away. As I grabbed my board and jumped off the boat the last thing I heard Shaun say was "Hey Check out that Shark!"


I emptied my bowels and clambered back onto the deck in time to see a six-foot reef shark cruising by before swimming away. I looked at Sonden "Mate, I thought you told me there's no sharks here!"
"No problem! They won't eat you! You go surf!" Sonden laughed.
Rob from Melbourne chimed in "Who said there's no sharks? The water's salty isn't it?". We all had a bit of a laugh then realized that another group of unridden sets were rolling in.