Bondi boom

How's everyone doing back in the states? It must feel great to be heading into the summer. In case you didn't realize, were actually heading into winter down here in the southern hemisphere (notice Nick and I are putting on our wetsuits). Calling it winter is a bit of an exaggeration though. It was sunny and close to 70 today with clean 6-8 foot surf and a water temperature of around 72, enough said.

I feel a little weird not being done with classes yet, but alas, I'm in Australia and I surf every day, what more could I ask for? It's hard to believe that at this time the past two years I was already back home on Martha's Vineyard dealing with water temperatures as low as 52 degrees. The thought of jumping into water that cold right now makes me nauseous. However, the thought of tearing into clean empty waves back in Chilmark always brings a smile to my face. Australia's only fault may be its crowds, but they don't cause problems too often.

School has been going well, but it's always a challenge to get work done seeing as I live so close to the beach. Whenever I get home after classes the first thing I usually do is head straight for the ocean, even if I'm exhausted or have work to do. It's great to be able to take my mind away from everything for a couple hours before having to buckle down and open up the books. I figure that I can do school work any time of day, but I can only surf when it's light outside. This train of thought has resulted in many endless afternoons of surf and many endless nights of work. Such is life in Australia. I once heard a saying that Australians don't live to work, they work to live. I couldn't agree with this more.

In terms of my social life (yes, I do have one here, how amazing) I have been going out a decent amount, but it's just as easy to stay in and try to save money, as the price of virtually everything around here can be quite daunting. That being said, the highlight of this past week was without a doubt when I headed into the city with a few friends to see Vampire Weekend (one of my favorite bands) play an excellent show. This had been planned for quite a while, as we bought tickets a couple months back when we learned they would be playing in Sydney during their inaugural Australian tour. The show was amazing and I will be sure to try to catch them next year in Nashville if I get the chance. Here are a few photos from the concert.


In other news, we've had an incredible run of swell here this past week. Luckily, our friend Garrett, who is currently learning to surf, decided to head down to the beach with his camera a couple times this week when the surf was a bit too big for him to paddle out. It was pretty choppy, but there were some decent waves rolling through. The first few were taken from the south section of the beach, while the others were taken from the north section of the beach a couple days later. Here they are, captions included.

Nick and I gearing up to paddle out

Nick rolling down the line on a messy one

Unknown surfer taking off on a bomb

Me pulling away from a massive closeout, well overhead

A huge one rolling through by the North Bondi rocks

Me ducking under the lip of one, heading for the back door

Unknown surfer heading down the line on a great one

Nick getting ready to snap the lip, notice his leotard wetsuit, very retro

Me trying to pump down the line and beat the section

We had excellent waves this afternoon, which were much cleaner than the ones in the photos. Unfortunately, our new found surf photographer Garrett didn't make it down to the beach to document it. Hopefully we'll be able to get him out there again sometime soon.

It's crazy to think that I've only got a little over one month left here. As a result, Jordan and I have officially decided that we need to make the most of it. Now, you might be asking yourself, what exactly does that mean? In my next post I will be releasing the information about our next surfing expedition, which we just planned two days ago. All I will say at this point is that we're heading to Mecca (figuratively, not literally). So long until next time.