The weekend kicked off on Friday for most of New Zealands top competitive surfers. The weather forecast was near perfect and the waves on the rise. I flew on into the big city of Auckland and picked up my ride…a Hybrid Spaceship to be precise. The ins and outs of the spaceship were explained to me, like how the petrol goes further and is friendly on mother earth because the car is also powered by a battery hence the name Hybrid.

Unfortunately when we got into Rags the surf had not yet picked up but we hit the point anyway in hope for a freak set or two to come through, but we were definitely a little too optimistic. Lucky for us there were waves the next day, still pretty darn small but I had cancelled my subscription to expectations and went out. There ended up being some super fun wee waves and the swell was picking up fast.

Competition time and there were little waves lingering when the women hit the water. We were up nice and early in the morning and the wind was nice and light with the sun shining, being the first heat in the water I was able to sneak a few pearlers in. That heat went well and I moved through to the finals. They decided to hold all of the womens heats up until the final on Saturday, the morning was fun but as the day progressed the wave quality diminished. My semi final was an absolute nightmare with half a foot (knee high) onshore waves breaking onto dry rocks at Manu Bay, definately the most challenging conditions I have had to surf but the age old saying “we are all in the same boat” springs to mind and if you lucked onto a set wave and surfed it well you were safe and sound.

Cups of tea on the jetty in the sunshine with good friends,walking up into the amazing Bridal Veil Falls and lots of surfing is what went down also.

A big huge thank you to the Poulter family for having me over the week, your awesome!!

Off to Whanga in a few days for the Longboarding Nationals, good times.

I hope everyone on the east coast are safe and sound after the Tsunami and thoughts are going out to those in Chile. xx