With that heartless, stubborn wench La Nina queefing flatness all over da Pacific, conny organisers sagely elected to run doubled ended banks at Sunset and at Kammies first da first time ever. Even numbered heats were at Sunset, odd numbers at Kammies. I rapped with Glen ‘Micro’ Hall who said he liked it, “It was like boardriders contests, no pressure. Go out here then go out over there… but then I lost.”

I cruised up on the bike with no gears, brakes or pedals to read da heat sheet. It made for grim viewing. It wasn’t the greatest day ever for European surfing, with all remaining Euro interest bowing out in Rd tree. That wasn’t the only reason it made for grim viewing, it was also kinda hard to read. Now my handwriting is shit, I’ll be the first to admit. People have called it ‘GP handwriting’ in past. (For the record, I would never be General Practitioner. If I were a doctor, I would almost certainly be a gynaecologist in an old people’s home). But hang on a minute, who’s this Mick Farrig who’s got a heat with Raoni Mostro and a surfer called simply ‘Brett’. (Maybe he’s so good, like Brazilian footballers he gets to have just one name…)

Anyway. Surf forecast looks pants. They gonna finish it off tomorrow out of mercy, like putting down a senile, decrepit pooch who is running around in circles and can’t even cock his leg to wee.

I’ve been here a week today. Without meaning to make this all about me, a week ago I took my first wave on the N Shore of the season and got dropped in on by a South African hair farmer with a pony tail, who incidentally is my neighbour and I had just met in the yard. Today, he told me four times that he had a ‘mate in the contest.’

This is for you, cuzzybru.