January 3rd 2023: Realisation

My plan was simple: teach all my kids to surf and then reap the rewards as they gained the competency required to handle bigger days and started to get a love for the type of adventure waves I loved to chase.

That is not as simple as it sounds. I spent about eight years sacrificing good waves for small kid-friendly options. I pushed them in, showed them around lineups and hardly surfed for myself in that time. That was okay. It was a heap of fun and so rewarding to see their progression.

Now that has all changed and this past week is a great example – the realisation of my dream. My youngest, Keo, is 13 and he had a mate over from the Gold Coast, Felix Gibbs, also 13. His dad did a similar thing and so we found ourselves adventuring down to the Catlins to surf a remote point. We squeezed in three sessions in five days ranging from super fun 2-3 foot runners to some super scary 4-6 foot walls ... with frequent clean-up sets thrown in just to be sure.

Luckily Keo and Felix had felt their way around the kelp-lined lineup on the small day and were ready for the bigger days. Knowing the reef outcrops and fingers certainly helps.

The bigger day was incredible. Mainly just locals in the water and a really cool vibe with lots of waves to go around and a lot of hooting. The grommets were the youngest out there by a fair few years and charged some serious waves – Keo rode his 5'6" QB compared to my 6'8". Me and Gibby spent our time keeping an eye on them – just to make sure none of the clean-up sets caused any trouble (sorry no photos of them, unfortunately). They both handled themsleves really well in the conditions.

Eventually a clean up set took the whole pack out with just me, Keo and Felix and one other surfer, Andy, making it back out.

It was pretty surreal to be out there with just four people and these six-wave sets wandering casually in every five to ten minutes. I certainly wasn't experiencing adventure surfing like that at 13.

The boys probably don't fully realise it yet, but that will be a day they will never forget.

Happy New Year! We wish you a 2023 packed with adventures and good times.

See you at the beach ... Derek

PS To get you started with your good times try out our new surf forecasting page. Make sure to bookmark it for future reference. We went super visual with it ... easy as ... rock on 2023.