2007 Fosters WCT Rip Curl Bells Beach Festival

It’s bloody cold in Bells. You can almost feel your
testicles losing volume when your drive into the car
park. I actually thought I could hear them make a
light deflating whooshing sound when I saw the contest
super structure. I could be wrong though; it could
have just been the excitement.

USUAL SUSPECTS DOMINATE ROUND 1 AT BELLS FULL ASP PRESS RELEASE AND HEAT RESULTS WITH PHOTOS

I find Bells very exciting, so exciting I missed the
first few heats. My sources said Wardo went pretty
well, scored one of the highest waves of the day. “It
was pretty shitty though early,” reckoned Aussie Ace
Buchan. “Four or five foot, good swell, but pretty
bumpy. It improved during the day. Well for me anyway,
I won and anytime you are surfing Bells Bowl with
three guys, life’s pretty good.”

I assume he’s right. Life wasn’t so good for Aussie
rookie Kai Otton, he slept in and almost missed his
heat. “I was on the red-eye from Perth (that’s a five
hour flight that lands on the east coast at 5.00am).
Then I missed my alarm. I was pretty confused. I had
six boards in the car and not a clue what to ride.
Then for the whole heat, I’d paddle for a wave and get
a set on the head.”

It can be a confusing place. At one stage I didn’t
know whether to open a beer, surf Winki (it was pretty
fun all day) or watch the heats. I watched the heats.
But I was still confused. During the day, with the
tide coming up, there was some waves breaking on the
Bells Bowl, some on the inside Rincon reef, pretty
much that classic Bells mind fuck (conundrum??). Mind
you a few guys seemed to be getting their head around
it. “Mick and Kelly surfed the best, then daylight
second. He often is,” reckoned Rip Curl Pit Boss Matt
Griggs. I actually thought Andy and Parko and Kelly
would have pipped Daylight, which again is confusing,
cause that’s a weird name for a surfer. There used to
be a theory Kelly doesn’t like surfing Bells. Well he
looked pretty smooth and relaxed to me, got 16 points
or so, just like that.

There was a pretty small but
hardy crowd there. Most of ‘em stayed all day, just
chilled to the bone and watching every heat, eating
horrible, sloppy meat pies and loving it. Andy was
Andy, you know strong and powerful and confident and
all that stuff. Luke Munro, a rookie was all over it
too, nice and groovy and smooth. Bede Durbidge doesn’t
have a sticker on his board and stomped it. I find
that a little confusing but Pancho’s and Brucey’s
hacks, well even I can get my shrivelled balls and pea
brain around those things. So that was it. The first
day of the Rip Curl Pro. As I said, you can feel the
excitement in your nether regions. It’s Bells, and as
Ace said, it’s a bloody good place to be.

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