Day 6. The Surf Dog Loft, Kammies. 21.42

Today was canny windy on the North Shore. Now it’s dark and it still is.  I jumped in at Sunset early doors before it got too ragged and before the horn blew. As I was paddling out across that end bit of the Inside bowl I managed to get in the way of the up-and-riding World no’s 5 and 27 (CJ and AB), so that was pretty cool.

They ran eight heats of the round of 96 in tricky, fairy crappy Sunset by her own regal standards. The main talking point of the morning was Andy Irons, who made his heat (there had been plenty of natter about his un AI-like showing at Haleiwa last week). Romain Cloitre surfed well but just missed out on advancing, and Gony, who has an outside chance of finishing in the Top 15 if he can put a run together will surf first heat tomorrow morn, if it’s on. Also still to surf in this round of the Euros are Aritz and Ruben Gonzalez, who blazed yesterday.

Still to surf in this round along with Gony and Aritz is Portugal’s Ruben ‘Speedy’ Gonzalez, seen here pillow-talking after yesterday’s fun with Eurosport’s JP Mothes.

The other news of course is that Steph Gilmore is the World Champ for the 3rd year on the trot, after making the Final at the Gidget Pro yesterday. Stay tuned for the Steph interview tomorrow, it was supposed to be today but we got bumped in favour of websites who actually get some traffic. Soz.

The Australians had a game of ‘touch footy’ at Sunset Beach Elementary this ‘arvo.’ Playing touch footy at Sunset Beach Elementary in the arvo is actually in the small print of the ASP Australasia’s pro contracts, just under the bit about agreeing to profess to ‘loving all the old buildings’ when in Europe.

QLD vs NSW featured Dean Morrison, Tom Whitaker, Bede Durbidge, Kai Otton, Mark Matthews, Jarred Howse, Ace Buchan, Bots… you get the idea. According to Bottle, the best player was Tommy Whits and that the most moaning/ordering others about even though he’s shit himself was Kai Ottz.

Here’s today video from the O’Neill World Cup.