Wednesday, June 3, 2009   10 Comments

Meeting Occy was a blast, I gotta say. One of the true legends of the surf world, and clearly one of the true Characters.

When I think of the legends of the sport I think of Dora, Young, Eddie, Curren, Occy, Slater - the guys that have been immortalised through the way they ride waves and lived their lives through this sport.

It's been over 20 years of watching the guy on surf vid's, Billabong Pump being the defining film that sticks in my mind (see a bit from ytube below), with Occy charging J-Bay, Africa and other magical surf spots. Also the ASP comps back in the old days when TV3 would run the odd comp, usually Sunset or Pipe masters.




So having a short yak with him was cool.

Stoked Grom

So he's sitting down at the Corona tent (massive ups to team Corona by the way) signing autographs for wide-eyed super stoked grommies, and even more than a few 40 year old grommies too (who were real grommies in the 80's. All of a sudden a pretty average out going tide Whanga Bar starts doing it, massive transformation in the matter of 5 minutes due to tide - sucking up 3-4ft barrels winding off over the bar.

Luke Crockford (from George FM) eludes Occy to these hissing little pits, next minute she's all on, there are autographs and posters flying in all directions, Occy is spitting out posters like a Hong Kong printing press at full steam, they are flying in all directions, he's signing while his head is turned 90 degrees watching spitting barrels on the bar - "awweee it's goin off mate, awwweee".

Signing session is over and to be continued later. Occy charges down the beach with Crockford (luke with a beautiful looking Mike Murden pin tail tucked under arm - I want one!). Like two hyper stoked 12 year old gom's they're booking it down the beach towards the harbour.

They take the channel out, and before long Occy pulls into a sick pit. He's wearing a yellow Corona vest so he's easy to spot. A good barrel to start with and many more from then on.

He must have pulled into at least 4-5 real mint ones, and a couple that were real deep. Poppoing out when the section was there he pulled that legendary gaffing cutty - you could see that thing a km away and know it was him, it's so unique kinda like he's layin back and looking over his left shoulder, the line is straight down teh face, rail still digging in when he reaches the trough then around to bounce the whitewater - nice.


Occy - Photo: COL/SURF2SURF.com


The local thing

Not a big deal. A few kids got excited, that's all, no big deal. I do wonder if clearing the water for the surf would have been a good thing, they were only in the water for a short time, no big deal - that's my opinion.


Parko

Parko was a little mellow on the Whanga leg, but in the few waves he caught was up there for the wave of the trip as far as I'm concerned. A long 5-6 second barrel in less than perfect bar on his backhand, was a real sight and showed is finesse in the barrel to make that one.


Joel Parkinson, Whangamata - Photo: COL/SURF2SURF.com

Gisborne

We charged down at 5am from the Mount, Col was already shooting on the beach, as was Cozza. The surf was real nice but not perfect Wainui, just something not quite right with the banks, tide mix.

Maz was pulling into everything and Col got some real nice shots of him (we'll post those on the site soon). Cory was shooting Richard Christie, Buck Woods and Blair Stewart, so he will have some crazy shots for the next issue of NZ Surfing Magazine - also make sure you pick up a copy as Cory shot the while Corona trip and has some amazing shots, especially from Whangamata Bar perched on his idling jetski.

So the scene was set for these guys to fly in with sunshine, offshores and a solid 4ft at Wainui - this is going to be good!

And it was

From his first wave, Joel had energy on the Friday. He took a few and fell on all, slowly pushing and warming up, remember before this both these guys were surfing Tahiti in bath temp water, so hitting NZ's cold currents is a shocker. And the water in Gizzy is cold right now.

Parko had more energy than Whanga, and proceeded to light the whole beach up.

As you can see on the video as the session progressed the moves got bigger and started to stick until finally he pulled into that good little right with a less than perfect barrel on it, came out on a real flat face and bounced a long flat air landing reverse then hit the closeout with a vertical fins out reo that was impossible to land with his slow speed - amazing.




The thing about watching Parko was his precision and control and athletic power. The big moves never looked to far out of control, he almost looked relaxed hacking into the wave face and sending a 20ft high spray. A few people behind where I was filming were talking about the same thing - he made it all look so easy.

The local guys were there too, Bobby has all the moves and energy for sure, he pulled some huge moves and you could see he was pushing beyond, Maz was there and had some nice waves, but that guy had been in the ocean all day so maybe a bit quieter than he would be if he paddled out for the avo sesh. Buck Woods got a few real nice ones too, and Daniel Proctor got a sick left on his mal.

Sick

Overall a great event with the floating location format the winner. Two days of really good waves (not perfect) but enough to make two world surfing greats more than happy, and give us a glimpse of their talent. Great vibe on the beach, especially down in Gisborne where every move generated hoots and oohhs and ahhs that echoed down the beach.

Great going Corona for making this happen, and Surfing New Zealand for again organising a great event.

I'm looking forward to see who Corona brings down next year!

Paul / S2

Cederman

Dan Procter

Daryn McBride

Hannah's Surfer Girl Blog

Kerrazy

NZ Surfing Magazine

Off the lip

Paige Hareb - Chasing the Dream

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