The whole goofy/ Natural thing with kids intrigues me. You put a kid on a surf board or snow board for the first time and they are never sure which way to stand even though it's pre-destined, they just don't know at that point.
The little kid across the road rides goofy on lefts and natural on rights. i told him that one day he would have to make up his mind which way he was gunna stand.
He said "why"

Mate, if he can do it both ways then best of luck to him!

anyone see Machado's movie "The Drifter"?

havent seen it yet. been looking for a torrent cos i am a bad man. plus a mate saw it and reckons it wasn't anything special. like an hour of footage about rob being all philosophical (yawn...) and then 30 mins of footage at the end which is apparently rad to the max
i want to see it for myself and come to my own conclusions. he has the sickest style and if the movie is a bit arty and goes on a bit, that;s not oo bad either, as long as it isn't a pile of wank.
i'm looking forward to the new taylor steele flick - i think it's called castles in the clouds maybe? it's the sequel to sipping jetstreams, so should be unreal. saw some pics of rasta surfing a boolshit right in india and it got me all amped up

Spook, you can get it at PB.
I was given it by a mate, they all believed the whole thing that he really is like that!

I have stayed at all those spots and one especially I would love to go back to.. gotta scam some me time outta this place!

yeah, rob being all soulful by himself in the jungle.... with 2 stills camera guys and two video guys lurking around. hmmmm. still, i like the fact they are trying to do something differen.t and his surfing is off the hook.
he can jump on a shortboard and surf hi-performance, jump on a fish and draw beautiful critical lines, and then jump on something wird and tear it to bits too

footage on that small fish @ Deserts is pretty rad.

Smokin today. 6-8 foot big clean Merewether point. Took me 3 attempts to get out. But worth it.
You get any of that Indo?

Mantas, a little crept in yesterday am only 2-3 ft. I saw Merewether on the news last night and was frothing for the early. This morning, a perfect morning except the swell hasn't come to the party! 2-3ft.. arghhhhhhh.

Sydney didn't get it either. Must have been a local pulse. Dropped today. My arms are rooted!

Heres a couple of vids of Merewether to wet your whistle. The footage is taken by a doctor I know called Cattsey that lives there. The tow session is filmed from his balcony.

Spook ,are you back at pit Stop yet? In see the season started well.

in tokyo at the moment mate. flying back to perth tomorrow, then will be in the mentawais on the 2nd or 3rd of march
i heard they scored smoking 4-5ft rifles to themselves abou a month ago, last week was small and there's been plenty of good empty waves.
am looking forward to getting back. only doing 4 month this year though. time for a change methinks

anyone ever been to sulawesi? we're pretty keen to have a holiday there for abot a month in july/august. no surf (i know) but keen to check the highlands out and do some snorkelling etc

My wife spent a year there. Mostly in Ujung Pandang living with a moslem family. She was teaching English. She trekked in Tanatarja in the central area and trekked in the mentawais in 1989 too, in Siburit.

Have done a few days in Ujang spook. Was on a long way round trip on the Pelni..
Pretty wild place and would be good to check out, but a month, whilst the waves are pumping is a looooong time!

wow. that would have beenpretty wild. siberut is still very wild and untouched. it's a long story, but we have a friend who is apparently the first white man to visit a village on siberut. the amazing thing is it is only 20km or so from where we are. crazy to think how many people visit the mentawais on surf trips and yet there are villages like this relatively nearby. he described the trip as "hard". that means it was unbelieveably gruelling
he's working on a documentary of his trip. i'll post a link to his website when he gets it up and running

you guys got any trips planned this year. mantas - you still going to krui?

our plan is march-july in the mentawais. then a month on sulawesi, just cos it looks rad and i'll want to be away from surf rats for a while.

then no plan, but a month or two somewhere else in asia would be nice. anywhere in indo is cool too. any recommendations for uncrowded-ish waves. i'm not that interested in the obvious spots in bali/lombok/sumbawa/g-land etc

was even thinking about the phillipines maybe. never been there and don't know much about it though

If you are heading up to Sulawesi you used to be able to get into the Phillies. Would be the closest option.

Yeah she was pretty adventurous for an 18 year old. She has photos of her hanging out with some tattooed jungle dudes. Not too many whiteys went through back then. She's never showed any desire to go back to Sulawesi though.
If your toying with ideas, I'd recommend going down through the Meluccus, the Spice islands. Flores, Timor, Komodo. We had a great trip through there. Komodo felt like another planet. Kelimutu in Flores was pretty spectacular too. Those places are predominately christian, which adds a nice flavour to it all as well.

Krui is locked and loaded. mid June. not my ideal location but still should be fun. Lots of lefts. Cant wait.

yeah man, krui will be awesome. i think there is also a right called jenny's point or something a couple of guys i know surfed it good last year. the krui lefts look super long too
yeah, all those places you mentioned in indo sounds pretty amazing. i take it you weren't surfing on that trip?

Surfed in Timor (Roti) and Sumbawa then snapped my one and only board so no surfing after that. Timor was fun. Only 6 surfers in the village back then, not sure what it's like now.
I know where your comming from Spook. Not all my travels were surf/ snow related. If I'd been doing all the surfing you were doing for months on end, I'd like to get away from it for a while and see some different stuff.