After the horrible first day of the Christchurch leg of the circuit we woke up bright and early hoping for competable waves. ..and to our amazement, there were very small but surfable waves coming into New Brighton Beach right next to the pier.

It was all on, the comp needed to be finished by that day and none of the Open rounds had been surfed. So first heat was in the water at 8am, I was heat 4. In my 20 minute heat, after 17 minutes I had a total heat score of 1.05 out of 10. I thought it was all over and I could go home but a set came through and with one wave I moved into second position, I paddled back out and caught another just before the hooter which moved me into first position.

Next was round two which I won my heat again no problem. In the quarter finals I managed to knock a top seed Micheal Burling from Tonga out and win to move through to the Semi Finals.

Being in the semi finals meant that I already had a better result than I have achieved this year but I had the finals in mind. I caught the first wave in our semi and did two big powerful turns which rewarded me an 8.33 out of 10 and placed me in first position. I caught another alright wave to back it up and remained in first position although I had tough competitiors such as Daran McBride who won the last comp in Sandy bay in my heat and looking to beat me. In the last 5mins of the heat I caught a left hand wave and ran to the nose only to find Daran catching the wave coming at me from the other direction. We collided and I fell off, he stayed on the wave and surfed it to the beach. Unbelievably I had an interference called on me which meant that my second best wave was halved. It was a very 50/50 call and very dodgy if you ask anyone. Anyway It meant I was knocked back to third position with not enough time to catch a good enough wave to put me through to the final.
So a more pleasing result at this comp of 5th should help with my end of year rating.

The most exciting part of the comp was the drive home. I had Daniel Procter and Sam Johnson with me who placed first and second in the comp which meant I had to wait for prizegiving which didn’t finish until 6pm and we were booked on the 10pm ferry! We raced from Christchurch to Picton in the van only to arrive at 10.15pm to locked gates and a sign saying next sailing 10am the next day. I saw the boat had not left yet so I drove down the back roads to the train tracks then drove down them to the ferry where they were loading the last train. I ran on and talked the guy into letting me drive on next to the trains, the doors closed and ferry left before I had parked the van and turned it off… stoked!!