Phil MacDonald's last video with teen surf team

Standout Sessions: Southern NSW Surprise, April 7, 2010

Date: - Wednesday April 7, 2010.
Swell size and direction: - 4-5ft from the Sth at 12 seconds. Wind: NW/NE.
State: - Southern NSW.



Getting grommets up is always a difficult task, especially when the swell isn’t doing much. We had been summoned by the boss to do a studio photo shoot down the coast at 9 in the morning. I didn’t even pack a board as the waves were looking like being tiny, so I just picked up a little fun 5”6 quad, off Phil Byrne in the Gong on the way, just in case there was a grovel.

The beaches on the way down were pretty small, and we were wondering if we would even get a chance to get wet at all. Darcy Phillips and Billy Kean were in the car with me. Darcy had never been down south, so he was frothing to sample some juice, something that didn’t look likely to happen.

The product photo shoot had been moved from the studio to the beach, as the bad weather had cleared. Taking our time and in no big rush to get down to the beach, we didn’t arrive at the beach till 10 o clock. The grommets hadn’t shut up for the last two and a half hours, so I was the first to jump out of the car, for a much needed break.

Wow, shock horror, there were waves!! Not just grovel either. The swell was a clean four to five feet, straight out of the south, with the tiniest hint of east. Winds were offshore NW; the tide was low, coming in. Shit, let’s hurry up and get this shoot over with!

Standing on the beach watching perfect five foots pits was punishing, the grommets were wigging out. The shoot broke all records, within an hour we were charging into the water. The rights were firing, but over the course of the last hour, the tide had slowly swallowed the barrelling rights up and left us with leftovers, but some fattish fun rights. Still though the grommets were stoked.

Knowing somewhere else would be firing, the call was made to head further south. Sometimes, this can end in disaster along this stretch of southern NSW coast, as the whole day can become a driving journey in search of the perfect wave, when it may not exist.

The first place we checked was going to be where we surfed not matter what, the grommets were back to their annoying best, and I needed a break again. The waves looked fun enough in the four foot range. So we charged out. Brett Burcher, and a host of up and coming south coast grommets were in the water being coached by Barton Lynch.

The waves, to our surprise were actually really fun and for an hour or so started to really barrel. Darcy snapped his board, as some of the grommets including, Matty king, Russell Bierke and Chaz Raynor, were throwing themselves into double over head green rooms. It was great to see these little groms, really having a go!

All of us surfed till dark, except for Darcy because he only had the one board. The plan was to make the grommets surf that much that they passed out in the car on the way home. This worked until their stomachs demanded I stop at Maccas!

What was supposed to be a semi boring Sponno photo shoot, turned out to be a sick day. We totally lucked out this time!

- Phil Macdonald