Lane's Ramblings

On Thursday I needed to head down to the testing facility to attend some tests for the program that I'm working on. It's not so bad because it gets me out of the office even though I have been known to sit around there for 8 hours with nothing to show for it. The facility is about 100km outside of Melbourne and, even better, only about 30 minutes away from Phillip Island, which is one of the places that I go surfing. If they run the test early enough and with the recent time change here in Australia, as long as I can get out of there by 5 I should have at least an hour to surf.

I checked the surf that morning and it was forecasted to be around 6 feet - that's pretty big for a beginner like me but I didn't want to waste this opportunity so I loaded my board into my car and headed down to the test. The test guys were on the ball and it looked like I would be out of there in plenty of time and be able to get down to the island to put myself out as shark bait.
The first choice was Smith's beach because the rip isn't as bad there but the tide was up and the waves were choppy and wouldn't be easy to handle. There were also only 2 people in the water and being by myself and a beginner, I feel safer when there's a crowd. I also go by the theory that if there's a crowd then the waves are good because someone in there must know what they're doing.

I decided to move on down the road to Woolamai, which is a place where I've surfed before but the rip is much stronger there so you have to be careful. Same result here; no one out on the waves and very choppy. But I could see some surfers around the corner not too far away. I went over to that parking lot but it looked like they were surfing a reef break, which I am not ready for at this point. They also looked like they were really good, some of them would paddle twice and all of a sudden they would be standing where, in contrast, I tend to paddle about 20 times and then roll over when the wave hits me. In the end I decided to save myself and the rescue team the trouble of pulling me dead or alive out of the water conditions that I'm not ready for.

But I did get some pictures. They're all from Smith's Beach.