The Competition Season
For the past month I’ve been competing around Australia – from Bells Beach to Newcastle. We had decided that this year, I would venture into a new world of Pro Juniors and even try to get into a couple of World Qualifying Series competitions.
The best girls in the 18 and under divisions and open women from all around the world want the top spot to either represent their country at the World Pro Junior or qualify for the World Championship Tour – the WCT.
It’s quite hard to even get into the competitions themselves; first you have to establish a ranking, but you can’t really do that without entering a competition first, so it’s quite a challenging process! I’m starting with baby steps! We started by packing our boards into trusty (rusty!) old van and driving 1786 km to get to the subway pro junior competition at Bells beach in Victoria. It always has an amazing, sacred atmosphere. During one sunset surf session a seal popped up in the line-up…while I was on a wave! We love the Atlantic. Soon it was time to compete. I had a good start in my heat- getting some scores, but as the perfect 4 wave set came through, I was 4th priority and the girls suddenly let the first wave go. This meant they got the rest… and I was waiting for a wave that never came…
So, for the rest of our time there, I got to soak up the powerful energy of Torquay coastline and have fun with good friends we were staying with; music, wood fired pizza parties and lots of laughs! It was great to catch up with Laura Enever too – who came along as the Subway ambassador – so much fun!
Macy had just won the Boomerang beach WQS that morning and had arrived too late her first heat (so the other two surfers got a walk through) . Instead Macy was added to the last heat of the day. Oh well – nothing like surfing a final in your first heat! All I could do was to try and hold onto my confidence, repeating the mantra in my head; ‘I can do this’. I stuck with the heat- posting a respectable score and then needing just one more wave. Well… The wave never came. I was out of another competition.
I felt really frustrated because my score line would have gotten me through almost every other of the 7 heats. So after less than 12 hours in Newcastle, we drove the 8 hours back home to a full day in bed with lemon and honey and ginger tea.
