Around The World In 80 Waves

After visiting Australia Zoo I drive back down past Brisbane and head for Surfer’s Paradise where I am dying to get in the water. I don’t arrive until the evening so settle in for the night at the Main Beach Tourist Park.

I am made very welcome by the staff there, and after I explain what I am up to they want a picture of me and my board for their own website.

When I pull my board out of its bag to pose I am gutted to discover that the awkward wipeout I had in Marcoola not only took a chunk out of my knee but I must also have landed on the base of my board with my knee leaving a hole the size of my fist where I landed. Oops!!

I gave a quick call to Dirk at Dick Van Straalen because he is just down the road to see who he would recommend and am sent in the direction of the Ding Shop in Miami Beach.

It is a great tip because for $50 the guys there repair my board and hand it back to me later the same day.

They have even managed to match the red colour which the original shaper had mixed in with the fibreglass resin, so you can barely see that a repair has taken place at all.

I’m disappointed to have missed out on catching a wave at Surfer’s Paradise but decide that I still have almost 5 months of surfing left available to me so I should do my best to try and bag another eighty breaks in that time.

Which one should I start with?