Well we're all back at work and iam sure all wishing we weren't.
What a cracker of an easter weekend, robe turned on the SUP front.
Friday saw hellish seas at 3rd ramp with 20knot onshores and good solid 4ft sets.
At 7am and with hangovers from the night befores wiked carpark party, 42 competitors venutred half an hour south the beachport, where the wind was not so strong and a little more side to offshore.
The swell was lined and the crew was pumped so a 25min, top 2 per heat format comp got underway.
Big waves, big rides and big laughs where had by all.
The heats saw a good spread of crew from all areas of SA and even a ring in vicco or two. A mention must go to fuzzy's "morning wake up call, late take off wipe out" and richy K's "searching for buried treasure" nosedive.
The ladies heat/final saw 6 die hards hit the water, with great courage shown by all.
Liz Gilhaus took 1st with Tahlia Pretty 2nd. Was great to see all the ladies out in far from comfortable sized surf, and all showed great improvment from past events.
The final saw nice semi offshore light winds and clean southern ocean waves.
Thomas white (from vicco), fletch and paul murphy all surfed well, but the final winner was ex-pat south ozzie cam gilles, who threw his PSH 8"0ft around in ways most crew would only dream of doing on a standard surfboard.
The arvo was left open with a heap of crew hanging around to make the most of the light offshore surf.
Sunday saw beautiful weather for paddling.
The Starboard ladies day kicked off at 11am with a quick stretch session followed by a leasuirely paddle of town beach.
The ladies then kicked of the races with a short run from town beach to first ramp.
Liz quilhaus was the winner with anthea williams and not to distant 2nd. (Anthea is normally a surf board paddle but now that she has had the pleasure of riding a new Starboard race board im sure she'll be updating the quiver in the not to distance future).
East coast kiter and allround water girl Holly managed a top 5 finish paddling a Starboard 9"8 pro. She then finished and turned back out for a sneaky surf. Scary to see her on a race board.
The open race kicked off at 3pm in near glassy conditions.
All the hotshots where out and ready to roll, with plenty of pride on the line. (or just wanting to beat the one poor victorian that showed up).
Nat gohl was the eventual winner on his barnd new firetruck red fanatic with thomas white 2nd and scotty mac 3rd.
Big wave specialist and allround stoked guy, Steve Petherick walked away with a new Starboard paddle.
Big thanks to all the crew that ventured down.
Especially Thomas from vicco, holly from the central coast and Rod from Starboard who i think is glad to be out of the cockpit of the starboard van and back to the warm water of NSW.
We hope everyone enjoyed themselves and hope for bigger numbers for next year.
SUP has grown year after year and we hope this continues.
Stay tuned for photos soon.
