Well, what a crazy week… After having raging bush fires right up to our back yards, helicopters water bombing the bush around us and a couple of sleepless nights i was buggered.. next thing i get a call from the tassie boys and it’s looking good for Shippies on monday.

The buoy is showing 26-ft 16-sec …and the direction is look good. at 2pm himani and i drive for the 7-am flight..and as its was my first time to the far south the stories of the infamous step were flying around in my head…. We arrive and hook up with jersey james and do the drive to port arthur to check the setup.

We walked to the bluff lookout..its howling onshore 30 knots but with plenty of swell … we talked between us guessing how big it was but with only the cliffs to gauge anxiously tassie it from all we new was it looked solid… after a restless sleep i was anxiously waiting for morning to come.

Ab diver /surfer tassie boy polly has an amazing twin hull cat with some serious outboards on it…he had an A list crew of riche vass,koby abberton, and meeting up with mark mathews,ryan hipwood and dean morrison…+ all the tassie hell-men james and tyller homer- cross, mickey brennan and marti paradis came on skis from a closer launching spot.
i held onto the boat with a death grip for the high-speed run across the bay so by the time we reached the majestic cliffs of the stern my forearms were burning…

The swell was peaking early in the morning so the boys had been scoring while we making our way there…james homer cross pulled into a bomb as we arrived and that set the precedent for the day.

Everyone scored good waves.. mark mathews held onto his go pro cam and took a heavy beating going over the step …polly backed the boat so close to the
lineup that the spray from the tube was blowing into the back of the boat showering us all….micky brennan and marti paradis were riding a locally shaped wooden board by a guy called whizz…it looked like a water-ski bottom with a huge concave..

And as the boys pulled in whizz hooted from the rocks and the crew screamed in the boat as they exited the barrel…

For full report check at http://www.oceanearth.com/oe/