2014, the beginning.

After leaving Raglan (pictured above) I went on to the Gold Coast in Australia for 3 weeks and checked out the area between Noosa and Byron.  I stayed in Currumbin with my good friends Rick and Jenny Willmett and their family and surfed Snapper and Dbah on most days.  The crowd was immense but I still snagged a few fun waves and it was inspiring to watch world champions past and present surfing on most days.

I spent a week at Keramas in Bali during my stay in Indonesia after I had spent a week in Aceh with my friend Yudi and his Scottish wife Sarah.  Check out http://www.yudisplace.com for waves November - March in the North of Indo.

One of a few really good tubes I had at Keramas, you can see my silhouette inside the wave before it spits me out.

A shot of me surfing Keramas made it onto the homepage of Baliwaves.com 

I spent the majority of my Indo trip at Lakey Peak in Sumbawa.  There were waves every day and a few pumping days.  On my last day I had 3 good tubes before 6am and about 10 good ones before breakfast, which was definitely a personal record.

Before returning home I decided to make a visit to the Wadi Wave pool in Al Ain, UAE as my flight went via Dubai anyway.  I was very impressed with the pool and its 'closeout' setting and I had set myself a goal to learn air reverses during my 3 day stay.  Unfortunately for me my first evening would be the only time I would get to surf the pool functioning at 100% due to broken pumps, therefore no more closeout setting and only a weak righthander available.  I would definitely consider returning to the wave pool with friends to book private sessions if the pool was functioning properly and next time I would take a wetsuit if going in winter as it was uncomfortably cold in boardies!  The offshore winds also were a bit strong during my visit reducing the quality of the waves - so all the factors I had thought would be eliminated by an artificial wave pool were more present than ever - winds, waiting for swell…well in this case hydraulics.

Back to Scotland now and the Scottish National Championships next weekend check out http://www.thessf.com for updates.