FURTHER ADVENTURES AT THE BEACH

Every morning we set off down the beach to watch the action at the Surf Carnival.

There was plenty of eye candy - even for old folks as the first day was the Masters section

Hunky old guys !!!

Well, I have to admit the younger ones were a bit more hunky !

OK I'd better get back on track !

The weather was fairly overcast but very warm and the sea was ROUGH.

so the surfboat races were very exciting.

They have crew of four rowers and a Sweep - the man who stands up at the back and tries to steer them

out of trouble with a large oar that is used as a rudder.

The rowers have an interesting way of stopping themselves slipping off the wet seats in the boat !

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You can see that there was a lot to hold our interest in the boat races!

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Back to the boat races.

So the starter fires a gun and off they go - through the surf, over churning waves till they get to calmer water and then round a couple of bouys and back through the surf again to the beach.

Sounds simple ?

But fraught with danger.

Those waves are coming through in sets of two or three or four at a time, pounding on the boats and it's a battle to keep the boats straight into the waves.

If they get the tinest bit sideways, they are in lots of trouble.

and they try to keep some distance from eachother

There are lots of spills.

Upended boats crashing around in the surf.

Heavy oars tossed around, spearing in all directions and five heads bobbing around in the waves, trying to gather oars, check to see everyone is OK then righting upturned boats and back to the race!

There is a ten minute time limit on each race and to finish you must have at least three men and oars still in the boat!

Luckily there were no serious injuries that we saw but by the third day the bruises were evident on lots of those ultra fit bodies.

and the boats had injuries too!

$25 000 down the drain !

I have put this little video we took ( only one minute ) on Youtube so you could see how exciting surfboat races are.

Cheers