Hot Stuff

29 degrees in the shade

Hooray! We’ve now passed both the summer solstice (Dec 21st) and Christmas and we’re now into the better half of summer. Today it was 29 degrees in the shade. Hot stuff …and I’m loving it. The best way to keep cool was to get into the surf and make the most of the peaky combination NE and SE swells we’ve been enjoying over the last couple of days.

It wasn’t just the weather that was hot, the surfing was pretty hot when the pro boys turned up at Stockroute for some aerial practice. Choppy took his wee daughter out into the surf to cool off and she was schooled by dad’s mate Richardo on the complexities of aerial maneuvers. With thousands of extra visitors in town this week for the Rhythm & Vines music festival, plenty of people are hitting the beaches, taking the sensible approach to keeping cool. Christmas and New Year seems to be the season for binging and excesses, so I’m going to make up for the long absences of The Daily Dose lately, by indulging you with a lot more pics than usual. Enjoy !    Ô

the beach was the place to be

perfect peaks to play in

Choppy took his daughter out for a lesson in surfing

“look Dad, here comes Ric”

“He’s just a Rodeo Clown, darling”

…here’s how you bottom turn, kids. – Bobby

…here’s how you top turn, Pops.

Johnny performing for the ladies

Richardo performing for the camera

summer surf craft

a sizzling way to finish off a sizzling day!

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Merry Christmas everyone!

from The Daily Dose Of The Salts

Wishing you a very blessed Christmas. I hope Santa brings you what you’re after.

““Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son,
and they shall call His name Immanuel – God with us.” – Matthew 1:23

With kind regards,
Don

Gidget

Wahine on waves

Generally girls are super keen to surf they just need a little coaxing. My dear friend Fiona runs really great Wahine On Waves surf sessions for Gissy girls and women of all ages to encourage the healthy lifestyle of board-riding and ocean-loving. The first WoW session for the summer was held the other day down at the Gissy Pipe. Over 50 women and girls took to the water to work on their surfing skills. Everyone’s story was interesting. Many wahine had not been back in the water since having children, or since they were tiny gromettes. The range of abilities and ages was very varied, with gidgets from 6 to 46 years of age. For some it was a chance to get back in the water after winter. It also provided an opportunity to meet new ‘Gidget’ friends and to ask questions about surfing. Local rippers Jasmine, Abby and Jayda were there to give the girls a hand and to inspire the up and coming grommettes.

The surf was a perfect 2-3 foot. The weather was a bit dodgy to start with, then gave way to sunshine and a light offshore. Gissy Boardriders put on a BBQ afterwards. Then Fi’ and her buddy gave out a heap of spot-prizes to cap off an awesome morning at the beach. One lucky lady even took home a BW music festival ticket. Everyone went home with a spot prize and a big smile. If days like this can be this much fun for the ladies, we can rest assured that Girls Surfing in Gisborne is on the ‘up’.      Ô

smiles all around

big girls out the back

waves for all abilities… perfect !

contented gidget

chickies of all ages

“surfs up, let’s get out there!”

Fi’ giving out the good stuff

here’s a spottie to make the smile even bigger

corporate sponsors

smiles all around

Friday flatness

the Dose is back

When all goes well …it’s “Sweet as, bro”. But when things become unstuck it can be very frustrating, to the point where one just gives up in the end. Trying to get this blog working properly again was so frustrating I basically just gave up. I couldn’t be bothered expending the time and mental energy to fiddle around in a very un-intuitive interface like WordPress to try and rectify the image size issues. The month of November passed by completely Blog-less and nobody seemed to be missing The Daily Dose of the Salts. Then I started to get the odd query from folks who were in fact missing it. So… let’s have a play and see what happens. (Apologies up front if your email images are still XXL).

no significant swell today

My mate Taylor from USA, who has been living at Wainui Beach behind Frick’s the last few months, has had his own frustrations recently. Immigration turned down his new visa application and after their official response sat at the courier depot for over a week undelivered, Taylor discovered that he was now an ‘over-stayer’ and had 7 days to leave the country, before re-entering on a new visitor’s visa. With airfares to Fiji being super cheap right now I recommended he head there to visit friends for a couple of weeks. He flew out tonight. The swell is non-existent here today -flattest day for weeks- so a good time for him to escape. His cloud of frustration might just have a silver lining!    Ô

Taylor, “Fiji is thata way”

Sponge Bay hills

caramel pine tree glow