Surf 2 Surf - Bede's Blog

Hey everybody, this is Bede dialling in from South America. I’ve been here in Brazil for a few days now. It’s a real mission for we Australians to get here flight-wise and I wanted to be as adjusted as possible ahead of defending my title here. To a large degree, this year’s Hang Loose Pro is almost a completely different event to the one I won here last season. This year’s event is much earlier in the season, and it’s the middle of winter here now so the water is colder than when we’ve been here in
the past.

The upside is the locals say this time of the year is a much better swell window, so that’s got me excited. So has the chance to get back into the water with a competition vest on. It’s been a decent break since the last Dream Tour event in Tahiti and a few of us have been eager to get going again. The view is that the world title race is still wide open.  “Parko” (Joel Parkinson) got the jump on us early with the two wins on the Gold Coast and at Bells but now there’s a few back-to-back comps and everybody senses the chance to get on a roll and make up some ground. Me included.

Tahiti was a frustrating event for me this year. The swell was small and there were long waiting periods as well.  It seemed like the event never really got going. I also copped Andy Irons in my opening heat. Billabong had given him a wildcard and as weird as this sounds, I was actually pleased to see Andy back in the water in competitive mode. He is such a great surfer.  I love watching him and the circuit won’t be the same until we see him back next year in full mode chasing the title. The only trouble was his cameo appearance in Tahiti came at my expense! It was a bit strange striking him in my first heat but that’s life.

My mood was eased a little by stepping off the plane back into Australia into one of the biggest swells to hit the east coast in years. It was a bit messy at times but on one memorable day I got towed into some beauties off Currumbin Alley.  It was a good 10 foot – and that’s pretty rare for the Goldy. We paid a bit of a dare price for it, though.  The beaches on the Gold Coast now are wrecked. It’s the worst erosion I’ve seen since moving to the Coast. There are still no decent banks, Snapper is a huge hole,
Dbah has no banks either and pretty much the whole east coast is wiped
out in terms of good banks to surf.

So getting on a plane with the Mt Woodgee boys for our long-planned boat trip to the Mentawais was nice and timely! We had a super fun trip, although we were kind of in between swells. The biggest surf we got was only about four to six foot.  The guys who rolled in before us apparently scored perfect waves.  That included Mick (Fanning), Jordy (Smith) and the Red Bull crew. Then about five days after we got home, we heard the biggest swell of the year had come through up there. I hate hearing that!

We still made the most of our trip though.  We surfed the pretty much every break up there and got some good photos and footage. We also dropped my shaper Wayne McKewen off on this ramshackle floating pontoon where he was paying $20 a night and planning to stay there for the next month. He’s a hard man. It wasn’t for me but “Wickers” just smiled and pointed to the flawless left 200m away and the perfect right on the other side. We’re now worried he won’t be coming back!

Paige Hareb's Blog

Four separate flights, over 30 hours straight in planes and – finally! – I arrived back in Brazil.

What am I doing here?

To be honest, it was an impromptu trip that I was indecisive over making or not. One of the reasons was that it’s such as mission to get here from New Zealand. I’d already been to Brazil once this year, getting a 5th in an important round of the World Qualifying Series (WQS) there. I like the country but wasn’t necessarily in a rush to get back! But after a few weeks of training in Australia and back at home in New Zealand, I decided to bite the bullet and head there for two back-to-back WQS competitions.

The reason is that I am currently ranked 5th on the WQS ratings and the top six girls qualify for the WCT (World Championship Tour – aka “The Dream Tour” with only the top 17 girls in the world). With only three WQS events left for the year, I was in a pretty good spot on the ratings but because the two Brazilian events were only ‘4- star’ rated, I had to get first or second in one of the two to improve my overall position.
It’s a long way to travel (and a lot of money to spend!) to know you have to at least make the final to make it worthwhile. But in the end, I thought if I didn’t go, I’d regret it if at the end of the year I narrowly dipped out on the 2009 Dream Tour. I’m not into “what ifs!” At the moment it’s working out.

The first competition was held at a small, pristine beach called Praia do Santinho near Florianopilas on an island called Santa Catarina.  It’s in the south-east of Brazil. The scenery made me feel very much like being at home in New Zealand. I was here for a week. The surf was a beach break and for the first few days it was very challenging to paddle out the back.  The swell was quite big and because it was a beach break there were no channels or anything to get out easily. You just had to try and punch straight through. A good fitness workout! From the quarter finals, they were two-surfer heats and we were allowed to have our own jet ski each for the whole heat to get us out the back quickly.   I’d like that service everytime!  You finish the wave, in whisks the guy on the jet-ski to pick you up and you’re back out in the line-up straight away.  No paddling, no duck diving…that’s the life for me!

I got to the semis where I drew Silvana Lima from Brazil. She finished No. 2 in the world on the WCT (Dream Tour) last year, so she’s a formidable opponent. Brazil loves her! The people here are very patriotic which is pretty cool to experience but no so good if you are up against her on her turf! In our heat the surf was small and inconsistent but the same for both of us! I was winning for most of the heat until Silvana snuck onto a random good wave and scored a nine-point ride. That left me with about five minutes to go in the heat and needing a seven-point ride. To get a seven, you need a pretty descent wave, so for the last five minutes I was patiently sitting out the back waiting but not even a ripple came through. I couldn’t do anything about it. I ended up third in the comp. If I had progressed through that heat I would have improved my overall rating points. Close but no cigar! The upside was I gained some good experience from two-surfer heats by going up against Silvana, plus some of the other girls on my heels in the WQS rankings finished lower than me at the event which helps too.

I’ve now headed off to the second event in Rio de Janeiro and the good news is I’m into the semis!
Just one more winning heat and it will have made the whole trip worthwhile. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Obrigado!
Paige Hareb – offshore in Brazil.