Tetris saves the world

I feel like I've spent the last week acting like a 5 year old and using boards as colouring books. I think I might have to start renting my Posca pens soon...

Tetris taking over - My pretty new toy

Marcus' mexican Star Wars (I wish I was the genius who created them, but I'm not. I just stole them)

Rudy's new boards

Billabong S.A Champs - Kommetjie

Whyyy is Cape Town so cold! I'm sitting at home in durban now, and its 25 degrees and I'm getting cold just thinking about it. haha.

I made my way back to the Cape Town side of the world for the second time this month. I stayed with my wonderful little friends, Tarryn and Cameron in their cute little flat in town.

Wednesday:

Tarryn and Heidi make cookies (Heidi burns them).

We found out at the opening function that the girls won't be surfing until Friday.

Thursday:

Went to long beach with Nikita and Tarryn to support our teams. KZN yeeewww.

Friday:

Coldest, windiest, rainiest (I'm making up words, it was that bad) day of the year - of course the girls are surfing. haha. The water at Long Beach was warmer than the air, so I didn't mind getting into my wetsuit too much.. Surfed a few heats at small long beach, and made it into semis :)

Saturday:

The sun came out, yaay! ha. I sat on the beach for most of the day, taking advantage of the fact that I only had to wear one jacket for a change. ha. I didn't have to surf any heats so I watched the KZN boys surf, and then watched a pretty sunset before I made my way to Fishermans with a few people to watch some old family garage band sing cover songs. I enjoyed it, I think.

Sunday:

Tarryn and I made out way to Misty Cliffs for the contest because Long Beach wasn't breaking. I was nervous to surf my heat because I had a pretty hard heat with Tanika and Holly, and Misty's was looking a bit scary. ha. The waves turned out to be pretty fun, and the water was warm! I got a few decent waves and came 2nd and made it to the finals. Jeeees, the final was one of the most intense finals I've surfed in a long time. It was so close but I was lucky enough to get a few fun ones and I won the u20 girls! Yeeewww, Happy happy female. Its my first S.A title ever :) Sat on the  beach and watched a few more heats and Tarryn's final before we went to Fishermans for prize giving. Ooooh and KZN came 2nd overall. Western Province is still yet to lose at home. gah. One day. hahah.

Monday:

Back home to sunshine, warm water and a pretty new board to draw on!

I made the mistake again of not taking my camera to the beach. ha. ooops. So here's some more stolen photo's:

Opening function

                 

Long Beach before my first heat. ( Pic: Chris Bond)

Long Beach, freeezing. O'Neill fluffies saving me! (Pic: AVG)

Tank and Haaagie (Pic: Mercia)

Tarryn and I overheating at Sea Point. (Pic: Tarryn)

Before the u20 final. Me, Nikita, Emma

u20 Ladies Final ( Pic: Julie De Vries)

Weeners! Me, Nikita, Mikey, Casey

Happyyyy (Pic: Chris Bond)

Bloodscan contest - Jbay

 I flew to P.E the day after my real birthday to surf the Bloodscan/Industry Cup event in Jbay. It was my first contest of the year so I was really excited but nervous at the same time. We didn't get any good waves for the contest - actually the waves were non-existent, ha. Despite the tiny waves everyone was surfing really well. I had Tanika and Holly in most of my heats throughout the event. I made it to the u20 girls final with Tanika Hoffman, Emma Smith and Gina Smith. I got a 2nd and I'm happy, it's a cool way to end off my birthmonth celebrations :) Well done to Tank for winning! :) Thanks to Bloodscan for such a cool event. I hope theres another one next year! It was also nice seeing and hanging out with my friends that I don't see too often except for at contests.

I decided to go to Cape Town for a few days after Jbay. I did a mini roadtrip back to CT with Chris Bond and Ashley. I didn't get to surf too often, the waves were pretty terrible expect for my one surf at Dunes with Mikey Feb, Josh Salie and Mr Bond. I had a cool time in CT, I acted like a tourist a few times. I'm going back again soon for S.A senior champs! Hopefully theres actual waves! hah :)

I wish I took more photo's in Jbay, but anyway here's a few photo's - Some are mine, some I stole:

Me, Tank, Emma and Gina. (Stolen off Tanks Blog)

Huge waves at point

Kane and the other durban humans

After our first heat.

Chillinggggg. (Stolen from Tarryn)

Watching a band at the Mexican after the contest.

Chris and Ashley. Roadworks are fun. haha.

Our country is prettyyyy.

Old Mac Daddy farm.

The first time I've ever seen an apple tree in real life. These tasted amaaazing! 

Muizenberg at night

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Braziiiiiil!

I'm going to Brazil tomorrow for the Arnette ASP World Juniors. I'm having a heart attack from excitement and a bit of nerves. Ha. I'm soooo excited! Yeowwww. Rio de Janiero for 2 weeks with Rudy and Faye! :) My contest only starts on the 24th, but Rug's surfing a QS there, so I'm going a few days before to go hang out with him, and to also act like a tourist and see a bit of Rio! :)
I can't sit here and type right now because I've got about 1000 things to do today, and I'm very good at faffing so I should get off now. :)
I promise I'll update this thing more often...
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Mentawai's MAGIC.

Mentawai's. YES PLEASE.
Ok, So I've been back for a few weeks now, and I still can't get over the trip. I've been for a few surfs at home and they just seem like epic fails after the waves we had! haha (Sorry Ansteys, I still love you.)
In the rare moments when I had nothing to do I typed out a few blog posts for everyday. Looking back on what I typed I'm sure I had proper cabin fever. Maybe I just wanted to rush the posts and go play outside on the boat again, or actually I don't know. But anyway, I've edited a few of them to let you guys know a bit of what went down on our trip.

DAY 1:

Hollow Trees

It’s our first time on a boat and it takes a while to get used to it but I think we’re getting better! Or maybe our tablets just work really well. We sailed 14 hours through the night and woke up to paradise - this place is truly  amazing. The crew on the boat are a really cool bunch of guys too. We got told that we'd probably be surfing for at least 6 hours a day. I thought it was a joke – it wasn’t. It’s almost impossible to not want to surf all day everyday!  Our first surf was at a place called Hollow Trees or Lances Rights. It’s so fun and I’m glad we got to surf a right for our first surf, because I just knew we’d be going left most of the time.

Our home :)

We ventured off to Lances Lefts which was 45 minutes away. I thought it would be lovely to go home with a “tan” so I started my first surf without sunblock. BAAAAD IDEA. It was only the first day and the sun had already cremated  the one side of my body. The perfect thing to go along with my rashed legs. Haha. All the girls are surfing so well and I don’t think its possible to surf badly with these perfect waves! happy place!! Weeeeeee.

Rash. I hate you.

Lance's Left

Summary of Day 1: Surfed for 6 hours. Ate. Slept. Sarah snapped one of her boards. Sailed out to sea and rocked ourselves to sleep.

DAY 2:

Woke up at Lances lefts again and I thought we were somewhere else. The water is so clean, I can see reef like 30 meters underwater. I love this place! This morning I had to surf in boardies and a rashvest because my sunburn was killing me - I almost couldn’t move. I’ve learnt my lesson now. The back of my legs felt like death! Since we've been here, we’ve met some really cool people in the water. One of the other boats has a bunch of brazillian guys on it. Only 3 of them are musicians, but they all joined in and sang us "Africa Unite" from their boat. ha it was cool.

Very, very, very clean water.

Summary of Day 2:

Surfed for 6 hours. Ate. Slept. Sarah snapped another board. Sarah, Chantelle, Tarryn and I decided to sleep on the deck.Wooo. It was so nice :)

DAY 3:

I don’t think I can write any more about each day with out it sounding the same. Ha. This has been the most amazing trip so far! Everyday pretty much goes like this: Wake up, eat, put on litres of sunblock, get in our little boat to get to the lineup, go surf for 2 hours, come out to amazing breakfast, sleep on the deck, surf again for 2 hours, eat amazing lunch, sleep again, go surf for 3 hours, have a bintang and eat amazing food again. Its BEAUTIFUL…I never want to leave!!!

Oooh and Sarah managed to not break a board today! 

But, I don’t feel like typing right now, Everyone is sitting on the deck in the sunset playing Kings.

Kings, Bintangs & Friends

DAY 4:

Neighbours.

Last night was fun. Ha. We ended up jumping off the boat and floating around for a while. After missioning to get back on the boat we saw the sea snake that was probably swimming around us the whole time. Sis. Freakout from my side. haha.

Macaronis again. Today was meant to be flat but it was far from it. Alan said it was the biggest he’s ever seen it. Ha. YAY. I surfed a little bit more on the shoulder than everyone else. I dont like backhand drops that look like death. We surfed for 2 hours, it was really fun but I was a bit unstable and scared of playing with the very sharp reef.

I wish our boat would move to the nice calm water now. I’m trying to sleep and I’m almost rolling off my bed.

Summary of Day 4:

Surf, eat, sleep, get sunburnt, bintangs.

Sarah snapped yet another board, and creased my one. Haha. 4 boards in 4 days!

We surfed with the whole of Australia and the prettiest sunset ever. 

DAY 5:

Macaroni’s: It’s overcast, so no shooting for us! Cookie made banana pancakes for breakfast. I never expected such amazing food on a boat! A quick crowded surf, then amazing lunch. Tarryn, Chantelle, Sarah and myself missioned to the beach just to be on land for a bit, and to see whats going on there. Theres nothing going on there except pamtrees and some random things from the tsunami. It was pretty though, and we found lots of pretty shells along with shoes and toothbrushes and boats..I miss Ty and my familyyyyy :)

Banana pancakes for breakfast!

Chantelle's "shell" Sebastien.

DAY 6:

There is no swell at all, so we’re just taking a day off surfing. We spent the day chilling on the boat, tanning, swimming, eating again. I watched everyone else do a backflip off the boat, and I instantly had flashbacks of me backFLOPPING as a kid, so I was over it. Ha. We swam to a little island just to walk on a still surface, picked up a few shells, paddled on some logs, tanned a bit, played in the sand. Alan also took a few lifestyle shots of all of us, I haven’t seen them yet, I’m nervous. Haha.

DAY 7:
I think.

Moose, Cookie and Gary.

I’m not even sure what the time or date is. I just know that I’m a very happy kid. We sailed to the Playgrounds area this morning. We surfed Nipussi, A right in a little bay thing. I think it picks up all the swell this place has to offer, but it picked up a little too much and so it was too big for the little bay. So we ended up duckdiving a lot and not getting the best waves ever. I say that, but I think we’ve maybe just become brats after being so spoilt with waves. But still, it was cool to be in the water. We’re about to go surf some other place I cant even pronounce, nevermind spell. It’s apparently another little right. But it’s a lot more shallow than the last place we surfed. Ha. Should be fun because everyones feeling seasick now, and a few of us have nearly fallen overboard.

Our night ended with Bintangs and playing Never Have I Ever. Terrible and great at the same time. The funniest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life.

Prettiest sunset. Ever.

DAY 8:

Tanning weather.

Woke up feeling  GREAT. Ha.  There was such a scary storm last night, I though our boat was going to get struck by lightning. Its raining again today, but at least its warm! I surfed 4 bobs with Tassy.It’s a short, fun little right. I think everyone else hates it, but i’m happy to be going right. Haha. I went for another surf after lunch and listened to 2 grown men sing Rihanna in the water. They got out and for a whole 15 minutes I thought I was the coolest human alive because I surfed a place in the mentawais by myself. Then some more people paddled out. Lame.

Entertainment.

Summary of Day 8: Rainy day = card games, eating, surfing, watching chantelle and Sarah fish – Sarah caught one and Chantelle shouted at her to put it back. Haha. More, eating, card games, and that’s it.

DAY 9:

Raining again. And the waves are even flatter. Ha. Ended up playing cards the whole day (again). Things got serious and we started gambling with sweets and food. At least we aren’t stingy. After dinner we decided to extend our card games and ended up playing Kings with our last few Bintangs.

so nice packing wet clothes!

DAY 10:

Woke up to more rain, with lots of wind. We were going to stay at playgrounds for the day if the waves were fun, but none of that, so we lurked on the boat while it sailed for 12 hours in the rainy, windy, bumpy, stormy sea. I’ve never been so bored in my life. I’m not even over-exaggerating or being a brat. Ha. Card games weren’t even good enough. Everyone felt seasick because it was extremely bumpy, and we couldn’t go outside because it was raining. Proper cabin fever now.

Summary of day 10:
I spent the day reading a lame book, staring at the ceiling, talking rubbish, eating, eating again, watched someone catch a very big fish, and even had to play I spy. We finally made it to the harbour after the longest day ever. Yeeeow.

Ok, this was supposed to be the “shortened” version. It’s not. I couldn’t deal with deleting things. Ha. Officially my longest post EVER.

Once again, Thanks so much to Alan Van Gysen for organizing this trip and my lovely friendies for making it amazing!

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