Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries:
It may take about nine hours to get there, but as a friend once told me, "it's never too far if you really want to be there". And we love Westport. The place is a little microcosm of what New Zealand used to be like. The locals are laidback and super friendly, the waves are sparsely populated and plentiful, and the town has everything you could ever need.
Part of the attraction for us was the second round of the 2021 South Island Grom Series – an event that attracted most of the young Dunedin surfers and the best surfers from throughout the South Island. Even Manu Roberts made the trip from the Coromandel along with Dusty Ferguson from Raglan.
The South Coast Boardriders sent a pretty big team – easily the biggest collection of groms from any one club. The atmosphere that creates is one of camaraderie and family. The families from all the other parts of the island are pretty amazing also, but when the heat draws into the pointy end, it's nice to see the depth in South Coast Boardriders surfers.
Standout performances were plentiful especially among the girls with Anika Ayson dominating heats and winning the premier Under 18s, Misha Peyroux narrowly missing the Under 16 win, Tessa Gabbot winning the Under 14s and Pipiata Ritchie the Under 12s.
Queen's High School currently educates no less than eight of the South Island's best young female surfers (including 2020 Scholastics Champion Jaya Reardon) and they're launching a surf academy in 2021 that will boost all of these girls even further in their chosen sport. That's pretty exciting, especially now surfing has been accepted as an Olympic sport.
And surfers like Luke Rogers, Lewis Murphy, Jake Owen, Nixon Reardon, Alexis Owen and a heap more are raising the bar for the men. If you want to check it out for yourself then this Saturday and Sunday will be the Otago Surfing Championships at St Clair Beach. We'll be there.
See you at the beach ... Derek
Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries: