Category Archives: Waves

I’m calling this the comeback

Almost two months to the date has past since the last time I surfed. Travels and some injuries has kept me away from the ocean for so long I forgot which leg to put the leg rope on. But today I decided to give it a go, the swell is small and there’s not much wind around so I wrapped my poor knee up really nice (so nice I lost feeling in my foot after 15 minutes). I forgot this passion of mine, which is a good thing I guess but man it was so nice to float around again. I could not stop smiling, I have now sore cheeks. There was this sour looking girl on the inside with me, she looked at me like I was some kind of mental case and it was like she forgot to squeeze the lemons in her hair and she ate them all instead (or maybe I just scared her). So I tried to tone my dorky smiling down but it just wouldn’t happen. So see you tomorrow dawn patrol, my good old friend ๐Ÿ˜‰

I wish I knew then what I know now

It’s like a distant dream those months I spent in the village. I arrived on a Wednesday morning, it’s trickling rain and I feel I’m in a ghost town. There is no one around, nothing is open and I’m probably really hungry. Everyone is sleeping and I walk around ‘town’, seriously town is maybe just a street or two if you feel generous. I had no idea what was coming for me back then, what this sleepy village had in store for me, the lessons to learn and the love and kindness waiting to hit me straight in the heart.

At the Australian Open – But not really

Sydney has been so wet this week, been pouring down with rain and still is. Hello Autumn – I’m waiting for your clean conditions. So I’m watching the Australian Open in surfing just the live stream online not keen enough to get out. Happy Saturday! Swell is big and Sally Fitzgibbons just made it through to quarter finals in Manly. I might have to make my way across the bridge for finals day tomorrow.

An open letter to you summer

Hello summer time, I’ve been waiting for you, yep I’m looking straight at yoooou! Thank you for bringing on the heat, yes have a look at me putting that seal skin some people call a wet suit way back in the closet. & even better I’m so stoked about this daylight hell yeah so I can squeeze in a surf before work and another one after if i feel like it. I’m pretty excited about the next months which is quite an understatement.

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Some Fun Ones With The Porta

Got some fun waves on my boy Portas on our last day in Medewi. We had it all to ourselves for about 40min, till the pro tour come out (haha).. The last 2 days were the best super fun and bigger but today was the only day we got photos ๐Ÿ™‚ย  IT was fun surfing with the Ports over the week, next time i hope we have a month or two … ย  ๐Ÿ™‚the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--1

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Got a little over confident the late take off ๐Ÿ™the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--7

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Fun

The Start Of Art – Glassing A Surfboard Part 1

We are have moved to a cool little town somewhere in Java, we love it so much we’ll keep it a secretย  for a another week or three (HAHA). The cool thing is the place we are staying with with a little surfboard factory out the back of it. They just happened to be doing the fiber glass on one of their boards and lets us take photos. They made it look so easy, but i know it would be way harder then it looks .ย  A big thanks to Keona shapes for letting us take the photos ๐Ÿ™‚ the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--5the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--3the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--2the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--1the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--4the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--6the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--7 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--8 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--9 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--10 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--11 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--12 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--13 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--14 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--15 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--16 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--17 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--18 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--20 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--21ย ย  the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--24the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-surfing-sunset--23

From Batu Karas to Pacitan

No more mellow rights for us – we decided to make a move and ended up in Pacitan. I’ve been tricked back into surfing left waves again it seems but who cares when it’s this much fun? Just me and one more guy out this morning – I’m so stoked ๐Ÿ™‚ Pax is stuck on the beach until tomorrow because of an ear infection…aduhhh what to do. We got some antibiotics and painkillers from the doctor in Cijulang but the ear was to swollen to look into but hopefully we’ll get it sorted here tomorrow.

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Surfing With Sylvain

Over the last 8 days i have had to stay out of the water, thats right no surfing for me. I cut my foot & the salt water loves to stop it from healing up. So I had to take a long wait out of the water to let it heal. The good news is I got to do some yoga (try to do yoga alone Hmmmm) and take photos of everyone surf, witch I loved doing anyway so not that bad really. We had Sylvain staying with us at our guest house but I never got to surf with him till last night. It was his last night with us and I thought it would be nice to try out my foot and surf with our new friend. ย Sara took the night off surfing and took control of the camera. ย We had a great surf and Sara took some amazing photos of us <3 …
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Photography Duty 101

Today I had the morning off, I have a cut on my foot and its not getting better by being in the water everyday. So i took the morning off and thought it would be nice to get some photos of sara surfing in the morning.. ย We just found out that RED BULL are going to start sponsoring us with our walk to the surf because its so extreme. Most mornings we leave in the dark and have to walk down the path thats full of dangerous obstacles, first its the crazy Dog then the Train that can come at anytime, if you can make all that way without getting hit, you have the most dangerous of all the ROAD. Its full of crazy buses that don’t stop for anything, they will pass on blind corners and ever get 3 buses wide on some parts of the road and thats with out a passing lane. Today Sara was the only one in the water for about an hour, so i got some great shoots before everyone come. It was just us and the fishermen living the early morning dream ..

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One of the CRAZY buses —- HELP
the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-4 The local DoGG always happy to say hi…the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-5 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-6 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-7 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-8 Even the Pro’s take some falls !!the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-9 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-10 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-11 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-12 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-13 Sara and one of the fishermen, just chilling on the morning sun ๐Ÿ™‚the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-14 the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-15 Great start to the morning ๐Ÿ™‚the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-sunset-16

There’s this guy in the surf…

There’s this guy in the surf that doesn’t talk to anyone. He won’t even smile back or look at me when I’m trying give a friendly good morning smile. He will just paddle straight past me like a dark shadow. We’ve shared the lineup just him, me and Pax several times but still no smile, no look, no nod, no nothing and I’ve been thinking he must really have some bad experiences with other people. Then if he doesn’t drop in on your waves he will back paddle you to sit deeper even if he’s just had a wave so no wonder. So by now everyone in the surf calls him Kamikaze. This morning another guy had enough of Kamikaze and they had a big fight in the water. There was to much bad energy in the water so I decided to opt out for breakfast. I guess that’s todays drama from the surf – now it’s coffee time.

Surf Instructor for a day

We’re having a really nice visit from parts of the Westin family – we seem to be in the same places at the same times spread out over the world. So when in Sri Lanka we went surfing ๐Ÿ™‚ Welligama is a 10 minute tuk tuk ride away from us, has some fun waves to surf and you can rent boards just on the beach. ย Said and done – I had so much fun in the water with these two ๐Ÿ™‚ Let’s do it all again tomorrow!

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Surf report from Sri Lanka

Been having so much fun in the water the last week, my shoulders are sore my back hurts and I’m all surfed out – it’s such a good feeling. We’re having maybe 2-4 feet of swell since we’ve been here which is perfect – and ohhh did I mention the water is tropical and there’s big turtles popping up for air every now and then – a m a z i n g. Pax gotย some cuts from the reef and decided to dry them out and take some snaps of me and Mikey a few days ago.ย the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-48the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-39the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-49the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-4the-sidewalk-secrets-travel-blog-surf-sri-lanka-midigama-mirissa-surfing-53

A day & night with the CrAzYz

Hmm someone told us there would be waves here ย ๐Ÿ™‚
the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-1 Found one or three with the Mikey Viv & Sara
the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-2 Mikey killing it on my 5’11 Fatito don’t know if he’ll give it back next time he get’s his hands on it, ย he got all the fun one’s that day GRRRRRRR……the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-3 the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-4 the-sidewalk-secrets-surf-travel-blog-sri-lanka-midigama-surf-5Went to the Dewmini Roti Shop for some great food, i could have eaten there all day. If you are in Mirssa you need to go if you will regret it !!!!!ย DCIM100GOPROGOPR2860.Sara & me with happy bellys
DCIM100GOPROGOPR2886.This is that happens when you drink with the cazyz all afternoon, you end up doing a drunken photoshoot ๐Ÿ™‚
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