Cottesloe Longboard Club, surfing Western Australia

The tribes gathered at Yallingup car park on the morning of the 31st of October for the Annual Lindsay Thompson Memorial Longboard Club Competition, between Indian Ocean (Tough Guys), Cottesloe, (G’day Bay), Scarborough (The Reformations) and Mullaloo (White Elephant Pointers).

Our team strategist and psychologist, Rob Shaw , was put in charge of the formalities for the days activities. Our team was selected by post code to give our country members, particularly our Dumbelyung Chapter, a chance to compete instead of paddling in the farm dam all day.

The medicine man of the Indian ocean club Billy G (is not a girl) conjured up a master stroke after a close inspection of the Yals break revealed some technical floors in the way the wave was breaking. A building swell and strong onshore winds resulted in a move to Ingidup Point. After Billy consulted the oracle out of the movie 300 Spartans, the wave warriors grabbed their tools of trade and headed toward the mosquito infested area known as Car Park. Once there, a half kilometre sand obstacle course awaited us for the walk to Injidup Point with our boards, wetties, towels, food and water for the day. This was to be a six hour stay on the beach. Carrying an old mal is tough going anytime, but particularly on a goat track.

Once there, the Cottesloe team raised both the “Club Flag” and “The Boxing Kangaroo Flag” which I found at Isos a week earlier. This flag was obviously old and was used on Kookaburra II and discarded when Kevin Parry lost the “Old Mug”!

Rob Shaw took aside his warrants one by one, grilled them on the beach and psyched them into a competitive frenzy. The waves were six to eight feet faces on the sets, clean and fast down the line with two killer suckie, slabby sections awaiting the unsuspected rail dig and “bang down you go”.

Indian Ocean held the trophy, Mullaloo was the dark horse and Cottesloe had already claimed the beach as South, South Cottesloe . Scarborough was just glad to have made the walk.

The comp began but we had lost Bronwyn Fricke to The Indians to make up their numbers in the women’s. Rob Shaw filled out the one day transfer papers and asked to see The Indians insurance policy in case of injury to our fabled wahine. The Club Priest, Ron Dobrich, then counselled Bronwyn and said it was not a sin to surf for another club, but not to show off.

Andre and Dunny relished in the open men’s and ensured a good start. Roland Fricke, still distraught over the defection of his wife, was battling immense depression and anxiety on the beach. Team doctor, Weeksy, paid a quick visit to the club’s medical cabinet, found some Ritalin & GHB and quickly administered the potion to our ailing star. Once in the water Roland surfed masterly, but back on the beach Roland said “I thought I was on another planet out there”, Weeksy said “you were”!

Wayne (Lynch) Kinnaird surfed in the 50’s and was brutal on his waves showing no mercy to the opposition. Catweisel purred like a V8 and was heard cracking jokes to himself whilst on the waves.

Dunny, having coming off long service leave, revelled on his “second” home break. ( Indian Ocean had tried to recruit Dunny in the national draft earlier this year as he spends a lot of time with their members.)

Claire Finucane smashed the waves to pieces on her trusty old Sunova. Earlier on I had seen her chewing on the back of her board and I asked her if she was hungry and was she going to eat it? She said “No, I’m just trying to get the leg rope cord undone!” Georgia struggled a bit to find good waves but finished off strongly. Fellow wahines Flick and Penny were late to Yals and had no idea where we had gone to surf, even though a cryptic map had been left at Yals Carpark for the stragglers.

I’d borrowed the Pres’ 1964 Cordingley for the old mal, but couldn’t attach a leggy as there was no coupling on the vehicle. Anyhow I was sure Richard was willing to sacrifice his old mal on the rocks for the cause! Regardless, I paddled out, bashed a few lips and pulled off a couple of tail slides and fin-first take offs on the more mellow inside point waves and both the old mal and I survived unscathed.

Meanwhile on the beach Weeksy’s back was killing him but he was sitting next to medical cabinet so he self administered for pain relief. Mauro had to withdraw due to a similar ailment so Peter Williams got the nod to replace him. We had to kit him out as he had no wettie, leggy or wax - lucky he brought a board! In an attempt of reverse genius, Peter tried to catch the waves by paddling against them however he found this very difficult. Once back on the beach and asked what had happened, Peter said “I’ve never been this far south before and my in-built GPS guidance system malfunctioned which affected my ability to lock in wave scoring coordinates.” Better luck next time Pete!

The Al-Qaeda bravery award went to Ian Dobrich whose two early canings over the slab - while diving for mullet - rebounded to get two the bombs of the day and even a “Holy Barrel”!

The family heat was all over in ten minutes with the father and son favourites from Mullaloo taking out each other on the first wave and they never recovered after a heated argument in the water about whose fault it was. This left our very own Captain Daryl Kirk and his son Spock, able to orbit around the take off area and cling on for an “Enterprising” win.

With the comp finished we packed up and all headed back to “Hells Gates” and through the pass at “ Thermopylae ” and back for a shower at out respective accommodation quarters.

The presos were held at Dunsborough Bowling Club. Indian Billy G, (is not a girl) announced Cottesloe as the worthy winners, following by the dark turtles Mullaloo, the Indians third and Scabs bringing up the rear.

Club pres Richard accepted the victory baton and the keys to Dunsborough and thanked the Indians for the chance to surf on there reservation.

Well done to all our team, keep ya fins wet, regards from Richo