prone barrel© 2009 - damon crawford
Hey Boet, what's cracking? Welcome home ...
Thanks bru. Stoked to be home! Mad long flight!
Before we chat about anything else: most eligible bachelor? You didn't make the top 15... You must be bummed?Well I'm not too sure as we only get the results back in the December issue of Cleo! I think it's the highlight of my career so far as long as I don't come last! I also saw that Daniel Worsley and Phillip Rodrigues entered. Dan got 99th and Phillip got 69th. No wonder Dan's girlfriend left him for Phillip!
Haha! Ok, your flight over to South America, via Europe and Johannesburg had some good luck, sort of. Do you really think you got upgraded because you were a bodyboarder?
Hahaha, well that would have made for a great story, but maybe he saw the Cleo mag - he was an airhostess so you never know.
Peru. The Inka Challenge. The first day looked solid and really good for competitive bodyboarding. How is that setup you guys got to hit?Peru was a great event, we surfed a beach break that the locals found 2 months prior to the event! The time of year was not the best but we still got one day of good swell! It's kind of like Koeel Bay on steroids, but way peakier. It was such a mission to get there, 40 minute drive and a 20 minute walk along the beach. Kind of like the walk you would do for Gas Chambers on the west coast. I was just amazed that they had such an amazing set-up due to the logistics nightmare of getting the structure down the beach! They had to drive huge truck loads of scaffolding down to the beach. I don't know how they were able to do a webcast! They also catered for all the competitors with an on-set catering company. I'm really looking forward to going back to this event next year as I think they are trying to push it for March which is summer there and the banks are meant to be better with a more favourable wave direction.
It didn't go so well in your heat and you lost out to an inform Ben Player and a tour rookie in Michael Novy. What happened in that heat?
It was not the best start after not competing for 3 months. I just could not find any rhythm. It's a wedgy wave that you had to be lucky to be in the right place on and I just couldn't find the right spot. The waves were just eluding me and there was always someone on my inside. It was so frustrating. I couldn't find a good wave and got a frustrating 4th in my first heat.
Ok, so Jeff took it in the end. He is looking good this year?Jeff's been in really good form recently, being fourth coming to Peru, he won 3 USBA contests back-to-back too. He surfed flawlessly in all his heats. One of the best heats I have ever watched was Jeff vs Winny in the Quarter final. Winny opened up with a 9 and then backed it up with an 8.5. Jeff was nowhere in the heat and it looked like Winny had it in the bag. But then with 7 minutes left Jeff opened his account with a huge invert on the right and then did a huge invert on the left to take the heat. That just goes to show you that a heat is never over till it's over.
What else did you get up to in your time there? Get in any good surfs?
Not really, the contest site is the best wave around there so we just surfed there. Peru is so unexplored and I am sure there are epic waves to be found there.
Moving on over to Chile for the Arica Chilean Challenge and El-Gringo is one of your favourite waves. You must have been frothing a bit.I was so excited for Arica. I was there a month prior to the event so I was feeling comfortable out there. I surfed everyday and it never got smaller than 4 feet in 3 weeks. I think the most crowded it got was 4 guys! How can you not froth on this place?
Where did you stay when you were in Arica?
For the first month I stayed with a local friend, "Tomate". When the rest of the Science team arrived I moved in with them at a hotel in town, it was a sick crew. Tom Rigby (The Young Ripper), Magno (The Brazilian Force) and (The Wizard) Mike Stewart. It would have been nice if Jared Houston could have made it! I think he will be super stoked on that place! On the subject of Jerry though, I really feel he made a good call by staying for the SIC contest as he has really made a name for himself out there!
