Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!

Final post of the year, just wanted to say have a great holiday break and a Happy New Year everyone.

We are currently on a few weeks holiday, enjoying family and friends, windsurfing heaps, eating and drinking way too much and catching up on lots of sleep.

We had a good friend of ours come and stay with us for a few days this week, Megan. She is currently working in Far North Queensland, so its not often we see her. It has been so good having her here, sharing her love of shoes and her new camera.

Megan and Phoebe.

Here's me serenading her, goo goo ga joo!

Christmas this year was at Kyms mum and dads down at Inman Valley, just out of Victor Harbour, we had a beautiful lunch of Turkey and roasted veggies, topped off with my dads now legendary Pavlova, twas delicious! All this was topped off by a late afternoon walk along the reef at Encounter Bay. One of the best christmas' ever. I did really well in the present department. Kym got me a 430 skinny mast with a skinny Chinook base, so excited! I also got Guitar Hero from Kyms family, if you havent played this yet, get onto it, its a hoot!

Christmas Day walk at Encounter Bay

'Livin on a prayer!!!!!!!!' Guitar Hero getting another work out

Johndo.
Da Pav

Heres the girls singing some random Madonna song, not sure Abbey knows the words :) very cute though,

Have a great New years everyone!

TC Fun - Lano goes old school

Susie just sent this image through, how stylish of me?

South Australian Social Windsurfers Family Day

West Lakes family day..

Well last Sunday we had the inaugural SA Social Windsurfing club family day, wind wasnt forecast, so we were expecting to rock up at West Lakes (not the best spot in the world, but very family friendly), so we were hoping really for a few newbies and a float around the lake. Well, it blew 15 knots all day, at one time we had 15 sailors on the lake, three or four new comers and a heap of kids. Russ cooked up a BBQ, Pete from ONBOARD supplied boards and sails to try, so did the GLASCRAFT guys, was good to see Leeanne out as well with her kids.

Bubs Senior gets some action in the TC Runner......only board to get planning all day

The crowd going wild......

Phoebe seemed to be having fun, think she was more interested in jelly fish than sailing though.

After 5 hours of family fun we made the call to hit the wind and waves at Semaphore, it looked windy, but not quite enough, so we made the call to hit Seacliff for a seabreeze session. Great 20-25 knot SW wind for three hours, both Kym and I had a great sail. I have been sailing flat water a bit much lately, so sailing on the smaller kit was challenging to say the least. I had Kyms 93 JP FSW (07) and my new 5.7 Firefly. Steve and Kym rocked up, Susie and Dean were already out, as well as a few other crew, so a good group to sail with

I got a few nice turns in, nearly made some gybes on the small board (aim for end of summer, gybe small kit), also popped a few little jumps, destroyed a 25cm fin on the rocks and had a smile on my face the whole time :)

Cant wait for this weekend, good SW conditions set to kick in come Saturday!

Kym hits the reef!

Well Saturday turned out to be a great day out, Southerly, highish tide and a little wave on the mid coast, Seaford reef to be exact. We set up with about 8 other fanatics, Kym rigged up her trusty 4.4 Core, then proceeded to hit the waves. Cant see us doing to many more flat sessions after this one, she is totally hooked on the waves now (I had better lift my game)

U-Turns is about 25 minutes south of Adelaide, just south of Noarlunga. This is great for us, as its close to home, nothing better than being in the water 30 minutes after leaving home. We sail all over the state, mainly on the south coast, which means a one hour drive, so mid coast is looking like a good option this year.

Crew heading out

Dean Ryles showing us all how its done....fark he is a good sailor!

The view from Seaford back towards Southport / Noarlunga, breath taking coast line.

More pics from Milang weekend

After spending three days in 'the editing suite' earlier this week, I thought I would post up some pics from the weekend in Milang, as I am not sure the video did the weekend justice.

Hoping to get into the ocean today for some bump and jump action, the last few weeks of flat water have been great for tightening up on a few technique issues, ie Gybes and tacks, so feeling better about a bit of seawater.

Demo gear getting thrashed (I mean responsibly used)

Kiters on the beach. This shot really shows the plight of the River Murray and how dire the situation is with the lack of water. Those sand bags in the fore ground are meant to be a breakwaters to stop erosion. The water level has dropped about two meters in the last year. Global warming and drought coming to a town near you.

It pays to have your name on your kit, as it could be presumed 'Demo', one poor chap, Kym from Barmera had his new 09 FSW JP ready to go on the beach, goes up to get his GPS or a drink, comes back to find it has been tested already, so didnt get to christen it :(

Kym with the Quatro, not sure it was in its element on the flat water.....

Kym cranking on the 5.0

Sam Doeke, a very fast man and a top bloke

Susie coming in for a rest

Simon testing the new 09 pryde sails, it does match his board, could be an expensive summer the way he was charging around all day! (Also looks like Simon is Kiting at the same time, what a talented chap!)

Kym getting back in to the swing of things

ONBOARD - Milang Demo Day

ONBOARD, our local windsurf and kite shop had their 09 Demo day at sleepy Milang on teh weekend. Wind gods were on our side with steady 19-23 SW on the Saturday, then a little lighter for Sunday. Kym, Phoebe and I stayed in a little cabin in the Caravan site, just over the road form the rigging area, thnaks Milang Caravan Park.

Pete had rigged up all of his nice new Neil Pryde sails, Flys's, Firefly's, V8's and Alpha's as well as supplied some sweet new JP Supersross' and X-cite rides. About 40 sailors made the trek as well as 20 odd kiters (which made for a tight often slightly dangerous launch area) - But knowone died!

Heres a video I put together of the weekend, I will post up some pics later. And yes, appologies for the sound track, Foo Fighters again, but I wasnt feeling too creative when editing the footage). If anyone can give me some tips with editing Sony Hi Def footage, it would be muchly appreciated :)

At last something worth watching on 60 minutes

A fun Day at Goolwa Lake

Had a nice sail at Goolwa with a few friends today, 25 knot (at times) North Westerly seems to be the new norm at Goolwa, normally on works on a SW, but the NW enables you to sail up what is called Aggies creek, a remnant creek for yester year.

Had a great time, blasting around with Hamish and his dad (thanks for these photos Peter, you have a talent behind the camera!)

Note to self, need to apply more down haul, that sail looks so baggy!

I put on a 'Lano Gybe Clinic' today! Today was definitley a day where things started to click into place! Even nailed a few tacks as well. I really feel that I am progressing quickly with my sailing now, this summer is shaping up to be a great one for sailing!

Local photographer Susie Burgher was out at Days St on Saturday just before the wind dissappeared, heres a sample of her work, new lense doing the trick!

Timmy smacks another lip, he is ripping it up at the moment!

Love this photo! Looks so fast!

Dean Ryles out the back on his twinser

and again!

Middleton Bay, South Australia, not a bad place to be at all!

SA BBQ and Sailing club

Well a group of us mad keen windsurfers got together on Tuesday night to reform the 'SA Wave Sailors, heres the link to the website.

We are treating it pretty casual at this stage, ie rock up, have a snag on bread, go for a sail and have a few beers and talk shit all afternoon. Sounds like what we always do, so why not start up a club, so we can all sail together?

Keep an eye on this link

http://www.ssaws.blogspot.com/

WTF?!!!!

Are you fckn serious, October 9th and Christmas stuff is for sale in the local supermarket!? I nearly chucked......

These same bon bons and the dolls were on sale at 90% off a few months back, now they are back at 'christmas prices' again.......where will it end?

....which is probably what Trevor is thinking, as we gave him a trim yesterday, he was not impressed. Sorry Trev, it was bloody hard not to laugh, you will be better off in summer though dude!

From this.......
To this.....

hahahaha!

KOALA ALERT!!!

I heard a terrible noise when I got home last night, like a growling, moaning sound coming from across the road. I parked the car, crossed the road and stood in the gully looking into the gum trees. Now it was pretty dark so I couldnt see too well, but I could make out a shape up the top that look very Koala like. They are in the spring mating season and the males are fighting for the right to the 'ladies' in the neighbourhood, other lady Koala's. They sound like a group of seals in a David Attenborough doco, its quite an amazing sound.

The 'fella' Koala's can really put on a show when they fight for territory and the right to mate, we have seen them year on year fighting in the trees next to our house. They get very boisterous and tend to fall out of trees attached to each other, scratching and clawing at each other. I will try and get them in this practice over the coming weeks.

Here's one of the fellas this morning, pretty sure he was fast asleep when I found him, as you can see he wasnt that impressed when I woke him up, poor guy nearly fell out the tree!

Just as I woke him up, nearly falls off his perch,

I am sure if he knew how he would have flipped me the bird about now

C2B 2008

Well the City 2 Bay has been run and won (definatley not by me) again. Another beautiful day greeted us on Sunday morning, 19 degrees, a light breeze form the north, perfection all round.

As I had done absolutley no training, I opted for the short version, 6kms, form Kurralta Park Centro to Glenelg. I was feeling pretty confident I could make the distance, as 6kms is not too far to run. I am not sure about my preparation for this though, the night before I had a steak and two beers, but I made up for it at breakfast by having a banana (?), I also had a sail on Saturday afternoon, which was pretty exhausting. The reach was only about 200 metres long, due to the wind direction in the Goolwa chanel, so lots of gybe and tacking training, quite tiring.

My time for the 6kms was 31.49, which was what I was hoping for, last year I did the 12km version in 1.02.38 or something like that, so I was on par with my last years pace.

Well done to all of the other Tiser runners, most of them posting PB's for the day.

29,000 people ran in this years fun run, so bloody good effort to all that made it out........

Media Club Bowling night

Just a quick post to show you what happened at the Adelaide media Club Bowling night! We filled 23 lanes at Norwood Bowl, 5 in each team, three from the Tiser. Two marketing (Retro Rollers and Team Tiser) and one Agency team (they called themeslves Teachers pets). Now I am a member of the Agency team, but I was damned if I was going to wear the outfits they were wearing! Great work team!

Agency Team, now you can see why I was happy to join another team, black and white are not my colours!

Resident Ranga Ryan, went as a contestant in Australian Idol, needless to say, he was mobbed by fans! After he took off his Idol T shirt he resembled a bus driver, weird!

Amy O, Lano and Jodie. Be happy Jodie, you cant win everything

Tiser FC - Great work team,

Scotty and Lano share a few tips (what is it with those gloves Scotty?)

No idea what Jodie is doing here?

Son shapes up for another strike!

Another great night, always a fun time on these bowling nights. We were a bit miffed with the lack of a 'best dressed' prize this year. KWP! (an advertising agency) went as a full bridal party and stayed in character the whole night, brilliant, even to the extent of sending a thankyou note to Jodie V on behalf of the bride and groom.

Now lets go windsurfing, should have some better material tomorrow, looks like its gonna blow.