Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries:
Now that feels like summer. Finally a week of mostly t-shirts, sunnies, jandals and plenty of Skinnies to protect from the golden rays. And lots of blue, blue waves ... summer waves ranging from tiny to some decent peaks exploding on the shallow sandbars around town. We deserved this one having patiently waited out this unusual summer of cold temps, wind and rain.
But it's easy to forget all that hardship with the bounty we just had, including some dreamy multi-swell peaks forming some beautiful bowls at Blackhead. Not a bad arena to stage the 2017 Otago Champs either and a canvas that saw some exceptional surfing go down. I somehow ended up swimming through the men's final and got to watch up close as JC Susan laid down a master finals campaign with barrels, tail wafts, reos ... and all done at 110%. It must have been demoralising to be in that final up against him. Elliott Brown was and stomped some great rides, but not quite enough to peg back JC's dream run.
Another young surfer stepped right up with Brighton's Ruben Peyroux winning the Under 16s, Under 18s and making the men's final. That's an incredible feat as each of those age groups have some of the best surfers in the country. Surfers like Ruben, Elliott, Shani Ayson, Jack McLeod and James Murphy are bringing a whole new level of free-surfing performance to our beaches and they're inspiring another crop of grommets as they go. That bodes really well for the future of the sport in the south. Long may it continue.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS We still have copies of our latest book Merino Country here and they really want to occupy that empty space on your coffee table. Just $60 and available right here.
Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries: