 July 31, 2009
Woohooo hello everybody. Finally got out of Bali and headed to the jungle of East Java more specifically Bobby’s Camp at G-Land. This is a place that is always special as it is situated in a nature reserve and the camp is in the thick of the jungle which contains all the manner of creatures and indigenous plant life and of course the world class G-Land Reef with its various sections and not to forget the Roaring Forties and SE/ESE Trade winds providing a smorgasbord for wave riders from all over the world.
This plan was hatched in Poppies Lane 1 at Divas Cafe over a few Bintang beers with fellow South African riders Jaco Steyn and Shaun Botha. Plan was simple come to G-Land surf our brains out take some photo’s and return to Bali with big smiles and many memories that this place can scar you with.
The bus ride from Bali to Java was one of the mellower rides I’ve been on over the years and to top it all off there were only 4 of us in the bus leaving us all enough space to try get some shut eye on the 10 hour mission to G-Land. Now I reckon the smaller numbers in the bus is due to the popularity of the new fast boat service which will wisk wave riders from Bali to G-Land in relative comfort in plus minus 2-3 hours not bad at 125 USD one way eh!
When we arrived we were all a little tired as I am sure the average sleep on the journey could not have exceeded 3 hours. No worries we got settled in and went for our first paddle out at Kong’s section at the top of the reef and then a couple at Money Trees section before heading to camp for lunch and a well needed nap.
The swell forecasts for our week here indicated that it would be nice and mellow G-Land, average size ranging from 6-9ft faces or 3-5ft in normal surfing terms. So far predications have been correct and we have been having fun sessions at Kong’s/Ledge/Money Trees/Fang and even a few smaller ones down Speedies on one day with the correct tide and swell angle.
Again I would love to ramble on more details but will leave that to your imaginations. Look out for some of my fav pics on facebook in a few days time and if you keen on seeing some surf action keep a lookout on moseticstills.com and check sessions and Gland for some surf actions stills.
Till next time
Jerome
P.S Wrote this blog mid afternoon and afterwards went to check the surf, it was really starting to turn on and saw a solid 8ft set hit the reef….Looks like a epic day here 2 morrow and cant wait! Peace! Jerome
 Shaun and Jaco cruising for a surf at G-Land  Tide coming in and a few gems running down the reef at moneytrees 
serviceJuly 28, 2009
Got on a plane to Cape Town with a wet wet suit and two kilos of avocados and was promptly loaded into an old beetle with beer for the sunset at Llandudno . Then into a car with Jem Johnson for the Red Bull BWA pefect 10
video launch at the Waterfront- what a show! All the ususal suspects had turned out in Support of Neil Webster of Fixer films- Twiggy, Greg long, A.Marr the list go’s on all the stars and spectators from 10 years of charging
at the Dungeons. The Perfect10 is a slick production with concise interviews and a heat by heat breakdown of the infamous 2009 contest as well as a look back at 10 years of BWA events – looked around me in the packed
theatre at one stage there was so much stoke it was a special moment and there is no doubt the legacy of bigwave surfing in South africa will continue to evolve…
July 24, 2009
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOWnCh4YXZQ]
A fresh trend is pulsing through the ranks of the top 45. It is not a new development, but, over the last few months, has been spurred on by a new wave of top World Tour surfers participating in the vogue. The fad is to create and frequently update a cyber portal of their aspirational lifestyles. Simply put, it’s a spruced up blog!
Recently, Parko launched his blog, giving you regular a ETA’s on being crowned 09 Champ. Jordy Smith regularly updates his new site, with vids, music tunes, and byte-size info on his latest escapades. Although his site is currently ‘under maintenance’, Dane Reynolds has been cyber savvy for over a year, keeping you clued into his anti-heroics. Fanning has his, and you bet-cha, it looks like the King is planning to launch his portal soon.
The above mentioned bloggers (Apart from Slatz, whose portal is still to surface) comprise random updates about their personal exploits. But then you get the Ellen DeGeneres of the Top 45, Hawaiian Fred Patachia (also affectionately known as FreddyP), who magnifies the trend by playing host and pointing the lens at the rest of the World Tour. FreddyP lifts the veil of all the Surf Industry PR machine and gives you access to some personal blips of info. And although REAL surf journalists (Like there really are bonified surf journalists?) probably cringe at this growing introspective trend, you gotta love the ‘E‘ approach of it all.
Check out Insurfnews.com’s latest video – the real reason for this post – where some of the worlds best (and guests) proove that SAB products and the top 45 don’t mix.
July 23, 2009
The “plan†to head up the west coast of Bali was aborted at the last minute and I decided to stick around and take a few easy days in the Kuta area. Of course this included one or two nights out on the town with the crew of the younger South African boys who at this point in time have left the island back to South Africa. Surf wise I only ventured out to “Middles†Kuta Reef and had a few fun sessions with good wave count that kept me satisfied.
I had been keeping an eye on wind guru for a few days and the forecasts were showing a solid pulse of swell. I was preparing to head to Lombok and try my luck at Desert Point, however as I was sitting on the beach watching the sun set over a flat ocean I could not get Padang Padang out of my mind. For a few hours I could not make my mind up, was it going to be a mission for Deserts or just stay on Bali and head to Padang Padang?
Eventually after a lot of thought on the pros and cons of both missions I decided to stay on Bali and try my luck at Padang Padang. I checked the forecast several times the day before the predicted swell and it looked like it was going to be solid. I set my alarm for 5am and as I drifted off to sleep I could not stop thinking about the possibility of good surf at Padang Padang. For those of you people who do not know about the surf here in Bali, Padang Padang is very fickle and also the premier left-hand barrelling wave on Bali the other wave at Desert Point on Lombok has often been described as one of the most perfect left barrels in the world and equally as fickle.
I eventually get up around 6:30am after hitting the snooze on the alarm clock several times. My brother and myself head down to get a quick session out at “Middles†after a very average session we head back to our home stay for a quick breakfast and load up our bikes with boards, camera gear, sun block and some cash.
The forecasts were showing an increase in swell throughout the day with it peaking at 3.6m sometime in the afternoon we took a real easy drive to the bukit and go checkout the waves from spot on the cliffs overlooking Padang Padang. To my surprise it is very small and only a few boogie boarders giving it a go. Where is the swell that was predicted? Was it still going to hit later in the afternoon? Is the swell hitting Deserts and missing here? All these questions.……I get over the disappointment quickly and go for a few waves at the Impossible reef with my brother.
I am now lying in bed wondering what tomorrow has planned for us as it seems that each decision out here is a roll of the dice from the drive on the indo roads to check the surf, the dodgy police pulling you over for a different reason every time or the swell forecast that did not live up to expectations.
Well let see what happens in the next week and ill give you the low down next time
Hope you all well and scoring some surf
Laters
Jerome
 A couple Bintangs getting consumed with my brother and Dillon  Yes Desert Point is one of the most amazing left barrels in the world
serviceJuly 20, 2009
Being the online administrator of this fine establishment I take great strives at keeping my crooked finger on the beat of online surf media – well, at least that’s what I tell myself! It’s a depressing job really, considering you spend most of your time trawling the dub-dub-dub, waiting for ‘important’ emails, while grabbing cheap thrills from your Twitter mates, favorite bloggers, forums and other cyber portals. In this oversaturated world of online media you realize just how sad you have become after clicking on something mildly noteworthy, and then spend an hour writing a blog about it.
But this time it’s interesting – promise…
The ‘hot’ subject thrilling me (enough to blog about it) was the volumes of surfers around the world connecting online to grab their fix of surf media and setting a new record in the process. This took place last week, over the three days of the Bong Pro, J-Bay. According to Alexa.com, a global web statistic portal, the figures show event website, billabongpro.com, demanding 0.02% of the entire WWW’s traffic and ranking close to 5000th out of the 109 million websites (approximate number) out there over the 3 stellar days the Bong went down.
Hold up… Stop the combie bus! 5000th / 0.02%? If you consider the WWW in it’s colossal entirety, those there are some mad figures. BUT even more bloggable (is that a word?) was the fact that 29% of the traffic generated around the Bong Pro came from South Africa – INSANE!
Perhaps this was due to some freaky anomalies – Parko mania – the excitement generated around the best waves for a World Tour event in years – Clash of the Icons – a local underdog from the Southern Cape who combo’d Taj – who knows? Whatever the pull factor, it blipped a new media yardstick, especially for South Africa. Hmm, so where to from here? Who knows? Back to my all important inbox…
Random
Read more about this at digitalsurfmedia.com
In ze jungle at the Mantis and Moon the fish have been chowing ma-kuzee. Caught a Natal Stumpnose which made it into the pan, then into our stomachs before we could even think about a photo! Otherwise, still stuck in the swell doldrums here. It’s coming, but my time at home on the coast is running out. Then it is back to the Cape for the RVCA launch party. No worries though… Taxi Violence will be jamming, there will be free dops and eye candy to boot - so hold on tight!
Been catching a couple on the fish the Wedge boys shaped me. It felt like livebait with a lumo deck. And hey, if the fish works – fly on it! One particular wave I caught across the Bay made me feel like Derek Hynd at Supers – with an extra eye – flying the high-line. This board really works check out the last pic below. I have to go and hussle the Maisch’s out at the shire of Umzumbe to sort me out some more boards. They take ‘handcrafted’ to another level by getting involoved in a boards production on all levels. No sweat-shop, cheap and nasty, pop-outs at the Wedge, just long hours that the two bros, surfers and craftsmen put in to bring you the best finishes and liveliest surfboards I have ever seen and surfed! Check Gazo in the shaping bay below with a Fang-it model, their latest addition. And Justy getting all pimping with a sweet paint and spray. Life at the Maisch farm is all good! With the times so economically challenging it’s up to craftsmen like them to keep sacrificing large-scale efficiency for smaller-scale quality. And that is what they will continue doing – you just have to learn to wait for your boards!
 Gazo grinding  Ghengis  Liquid love  roostafish
July 15, 2009
 Holmsie gets an ovation Bitterly disappointed, to be honest. Not stoked at all. without wishing to detract from Parko and Damien Hobgood’s performance en route to the final, I was hoping for an entirely different outcome. Slater v Holmes was what I had down on paper and what I wanted. Slater failed to get any good waves in the tricky Devil Wind conditions, and Holmesy got smoked by Dane Reynolds. As we watched the beginning of the heat we saw Dane paddle for a rubbish-looking end-section close-out that looked like a vainglorious bomb-out barrel situation. Reynolds pulled in, got slotted and slotted and slotted off his face to come out and whip into some massive smashes and floaters for an opening ten-point ride. Hard to come back against an opening 10-pointer.
“Thing is,” said Sean to me afterwards. “You actually can come back from a 10-point ride when the waves are like this. “If there are 10-point rides getting awarded then there are more waves like that around, and maybe you can get two of them in the heat.” Sean was also a little bit disappointed with his board choice for the heat. “I went out on my small board, a six-one, but I really thought that the south-wester was going to arrive during the heat. As it turns out I would have handled the north-west chop a little bit better with my longer board, my six-three.” There were a couple of calls that the contest should have held out a little, until the Devil Wind had gone and backed off, as it does late most morning, but there were no real complaints, so them’s the breaks.
Sean wasn’t too disappointed. “Nothing to complain about really. It has been a great event, the waves were pumping yesterday, and I had a nice little run, so all good.”
The second Clash Of The Icons heat, run off just before the finals, was another pretty fun heat to watch, although both of the legends definitely looked like relics from yesteryear, and I do say that with utmost respect. Maybe relics isn’t such a good word, but they looked old and cruisey in amongst the spinning barrels. Occy did pose for a photo with my baby boy, so he is and always will be a legend in my eyes. “It’s now nine for nine,” said Occy on his win ratio with Tommy  after winning the second heat, “and it’s ongoing. I’m stoked about that. I’m glad it’s even. We can take this anywhere, maybe we can surf out in Bells or wherever. Name the spot. Bring it on.”
Joel opened up his account quickly with a 9.47 right under the nose of Damo, and before Damo had even stood up, Joel caught a quick ride for a 2-point ride and had Damo in combo-land. The goofy’s first wave was average, with a few soft half-turns and marginal spray, and it looked like Parko had it in the bag with very little effort, to be honest.
By the end of the heat Damien was in a combination situation, and even though he edged himself out of it, he still needed a massive score to take the victory away from Parko.
Joel’s coach, Luke Egan, hoisted him from the water’s edge all the way to the podium, and Billabong Pro 2009 was history.
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Another week bites the dust here in Indonesia. I arrived back in Bali yesterday morning after spending a week on Lombok Island. Base camp was Grupuk Bay in the South. This little mission started out with my brother and a friend and just before leaving we were joined by a crew of younger Saffa boys who were keen for waves and up for the mission, which we did on motorcycles.
We left Kuta around 5am and headed East for the ferry port at Padang Bay. At this time of the morning the roads are relatively quiet so we did this leg of the trip in less than two hours. On arrival we were greeted by the police who checked our licenses and bike registrations, all of us were in the clear except two of the younger guys, I assisted in negotiating the bribe of 100 000Rp – 10USD to keep the police off their backs. We then boarded the ferry for the five-hour ferry ride to Lembar on Lombok Island.
Lombok Island is a different world compared to the holiday island of Bali, its actually another step back in time and you get that real sense of being a stranger in a strange land. On our bike ride South we were constantly greeted with “Hello Mister†most probably the only English these people know
Our accommodation was at the fishing village of Grupuk Bay where we stayed in a traditional style home stay which was basic but comfortable and the owners were really friendly and were a pleasure to be around. We were up at sunrise every morning and spent our days chasing surf at Inside Grupuk, Ekas and Mawi. I wish I could describe this place more but I will leave it to your imagination and will post a few pics on here and facebook. I will also be updating moseticstills.com with surf session’s pics for those folks who would like to see some images of surf.
Looks like I will hang around here in Kuta for another night and will be heading up the West Coast of Bali for a few days.
Have fun and I will have an update in about a week’s time.
Laters
Jerome
 In the mix with the coppers...or lets say negotiating a bribe for some crew who do not have bike licenses  Our basic losmen setup in Grupuk Bay - Lombok
A little bit hopeful, calling it the last day first thing in the morning, but all being well we will see a champion by the end of the day. Contest director Mike parsons wants to run this one out to the finish, and it will only be a severe Act Of God that will change the format. Waves still look good, everyone is simultaneously frozen and pumped, and it looks like an inspiring day of surfing ahead of us.
From a South African point of view it is a bummer to see our boys out. Greg, Davey and Jordy can always turn it on at JBay, but this year wasn’t theirs. The wildcards had less luck as well, except for Sean Holmes. He turned it on at the right time, and who knows where his run could end. There is going to be a lot of cheering from the boardwalk today when he takes to the water. Sean has always been a favourite amongst the spectators and there will be some strong support, the sort of support that started when he started kicking AI’s butt when the world champ was at his most arrogant.
From a surfer’s point of view, Slater’s performance gave full goose-bumps yesterday. He was on-fire and he ran away with his heat by surfing new sections, getting barreled over what is usually a close-out no-go area, and redefining just how to surf Supers. Watching him perform at his best when the waves are at their best as well is an honour and a treat for any normal surfer, and I was proud and stoked to be witnessing it.
There were too many highlights to recap on, but the 10-point rides are obviously a good reference point. Check them out on the www.billabongpro.com website. Three 10-point rides is a rare treat during one day of World Tour surfing, what with the events getting dogged by crap surf over the last few years. So it’s all systems go. The surfers are assembled, the cameras are pointed, the waves are pouring through, the groupies are well-lubricated just in case, and the media are all set to record another epic day of surfing. Â There will also be round two of the Clash Of The Icons, just before the final heat of the day, When occy will have a second chance against Curren after losing yesterday.
My call? Slater. He has the hunger back in a big way, and he has the savvy to smash people like Holmsie and Parko. Still, a long day of surfing ahead of us and anything can still happen.
My wish? Holmsie takes the win and steals all the WT points. That would be too funny…
July 14, 2009
Pretty sick, pretty darn sick. There are no adjectives left to describe cooking Supers. When the waves are going off, the sand has built up, the offshore is pumping and the best surfers in the world are completely pumped, the usage of words is irrelevant.
Holmsie was on fire, Slater was ripping, Parki found his mojo, and Dane Reynolds beat Jordy pretty easily. The waves were absolute gems, gifst from heaven. When Curren and Occy went out for their clash of the icons heat, the waves were lame. Such a pity. A few heats later and things started really turning on. It would have been way better to have the two elder statesmen surfing when the waves were going nutso. Still, Curren took the heat, and they are set to clash again tomorrow, just before the event final.
While Joel was smoking and scored the barrel of the day, his determination and fitness for this his world title run has been much-documented and it is obvious and self-explanatory to everyone. He is in his prime, fighting-fit and wants a title more than anything else. Slater, on the other hand, has been fairly enigmatic so far this year. Pissing about on rubbish surfboards, feigning interest, winning an event, surfing borrowed boards and generally behaving a bit like someone with cotton wool in the head. Yet his performance today puts him straight back in the superhuman league, completely unbeatable, completely on track, and bee-lining for his 10th world title. There is very little doubt that something has clicked over, again. I would be very surprised if he isn’t in the final tomorrow.
Then you get Sean Holmes. Another enigma, Homsie seems to read the wave better than anyone else in existence. I know, massive call, but watch him take off on a wave with a kink or a bend or something. From the beach you start shouting ‘naah don’t go, it’s not going to open up,’ or whatever, and he takes off on the crap wave and it transforms underfoot. He just seems to have such an affinity with the liquid treadmill that is Supers that, to be frank, is actually a bit eerie. If there is any doubt in the eyes of the judges, it must be the fact that Holmsie makes it look too easy, more so than Parko. Maybe the answer is for Holmsie to start wiggling or something, but I somehow don’t think it’s going to happen.
One other thing: the event is a green event, and Billabong have invested a lot of coin into making it green, and eco friendly, small environmental footprint etc. Maybe one of the larneys should go and have a look at the cars parked alongside the main road. I had 8 flyers stuck on the windscreen. I took them off and put them in the rubbish bin, but most other people just pushed them off their windscreens to fall on the ground and blow away. That’s a serious amount of paper pollution, it looks disgusting, and is a real bummer after all the effort that has been put in. Shame on you idiots who stick flyers under your windscreen wipers. Dooses – you know who you are.
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