| Mambo Madness // Event 30 November 2009 By: Andrew Cassidy Location: Merimbula Thursday I awoke at 4:30am for our scheduled 5:30am departure. We ended up leaving at 5:27am which I was super stoked with as it can often take much longer than expected when you have a wife and a couple of rug-rats to contend with. I originally wanted to leave at 3am but was secretly glad they had talked me out of that as I was quite tired enough as it was. We had a great trip down with not much traffic and only one vomit from the back seat. A quick stop for lunch and a look around the Bega cheese factory before my phone rang. It was David 'DJ' Petersen. People were starting to arrive at Merimbula and the nor-easter was getting stronger by the minute. A downwind run from Merimbula to Pambula was organised. Everyone was excited. We had all heard the stories of the 'heavy' run made by DJ and Craig Boylos just before the start of last year's Mambo and we were keen to get some of that action. The car shuffle was planned and we were dropped off at Bar Beach. We paddled out to the Aquarium in the calm waters protected from the howling wind by the long headland. It was so peaceful - kind of like the calm before the storm. We picked our line and shot off heading for the Pambula river mouth. The small chop gradually got bigger and bigger as we exited the shadow of the headland and reached the deep water swell of the bay. With the wind almost directly behind us we had a great run down the coast. There were lots of runners to be had and we hardly had to paddle with the wind, chop and swell all naturally powering our journey. Little Kristi Page had an incredible run, beating some of the boys. She didn't seem at all concerned about being out in the middle of the ocean on a 9'4" with some pretty scary water moving around. It was her 14th birthday eve too - very cool stuff. We all arrived at Pambula and were met with cold Powerades from our land support crew - thanks Rich. We tried to surf some of the little waves at the river mouth on our big boards but it was just a bit too windy and decided to sit on the beach, chat and catch up with new friends instead. We really should have spent more time planning the car shuffle as we now had five large race boards on the roof of Boylos' Commodore with six large, damp, sore men squished on the inside. Poor Matty Burgess drew the short straw and ended up in the boot. We must have been an hysterical sight driving back to the contest site, doing 40 in the 80 zone, traffic banked up behind us, sweaty male flesh squished up against the windows and the boards death defyingly flapping around on top. Arvo drinks and nibblies on cabin 19's deck rounded out a super fun first day of the Merimbula Mambo Classic 2009. Friday I knew it was going to get crowded quickly with so many surfers in town so I got up 5am, even though my body was telling me it needed to sleep until about 10am. “Hey body, this is the Mambo. It only comes around once a year. Get over it, mate". As it turned out, 5am was actually a bit too early, especially with heavy cloud cover. It was still pitch black and hard to even see how big the surf was. I took it as being small so I swapped my big race fin on the 12'0" Gun with some smaller surfing fins and paddled to the Bar. The fin swap gave the sun a bit of time to get organised and by the time I reached the Bar there was enough light to see that Brendan and Cam from Vicco were already out there. And I thought I was keen! It was still pretty dark and hard to see the waves which made them very difficult to surf well. Brendan and Cam must be part rabbit as they weren't struggling nearly as much as me.  As the light increased I started to notice hundreds of sand crabs all around me, getting their morning feed off the sandy bottom. Cute little things going about their daily business - all working in harmony with each other. As the light increased more I started to notice (what seemed like) hundreds of stand up paddle boarders all around me, getting their morning feed of waves off the peaking bank. Not so cute and not so little but they all seemed to be working in harmony with each other. A very fun morning with lots of laughs and conversation and a few nice waves as well. I cut my session short and headed back to help my son unwrap his tenth birthday presents.  After breakfast I convinced the fam to hit Pambula with me as this was going to be the main competition session for the day. All the kids from the Mambo families played cricket on the beach while the mums read their books and chatted and the dads went surfing. A perfect scenario really - everybody was happy. The surf was good. Glassy, chest high lefts and rights on a number of banks along the beach and in the river mouth. Kieren Taylor, Paul Jackson and Matt Lumley were all ripping. There was nothing but smiles from the very crowded line up which is a great testament to the Mambo spirit. Everyone was just happy to be there, getting some good waves and meeting new people.  Some of the mums hit The Bar in the afternoon which was epic to watch. Very much at the beginner stage these lovely ladies were having an absolute ball, riding the little peelers, squealing the whole way. It's great to see someone bringing it back to the basics - out there just to have fun and enjoy nature with friends. After being highly recommended from Mambo stalwart, DJ, the Pambula golf club was chosen as the venue of choice for all the kids' birthdays that night. The two birthday tables came together for desert to try and polish off Kristi's enormous Pavlova. The two guests of honour both winning the house raffle ended a great night. Saturday Another early but this time we went straight to Pambula. It was very disappointing to see that it had dropped off heaps since the day before. Never mind. We still went out and had fun. In fact we had heaps of fun. The bigger ones had enough push to do some big re-entries or cutbacks and a few of the boys like Dan Cleary, John Christensen and local charger, Steve Peterson were doing just that. Most of us stayed out for three hours and even at the end of that still had the enthusiasm and stamina of 13 year old grommets - only returning to shore in the fear of missing out on the last rashers of bacon from the contest barby.    The contest briefing contained all the details of the big Balmoral Boards - Beach to Bar state of origin race that was to be run that morning. A shot of coffee half way through didn't sound like a good idea - especially for a non-coffee drinker. All for the cause though, I suppose. Fellow team mate, Roger Peters, and I drove to Bar Beach to get ready for our leg of the battle. We weren't there long before the leaders of the pack were sighted crossing the bay, jostling for that highly coveted first place. Lummers hit the beach first, closely followed by our second paddler Stuart Murray. Roger downed his coffee and headed back to Main Beach. Melissa McManus returned in third place, a valiant effort by the young lass - keeping up with some of Australia's best male paddlers. I bravely gulped down my coffee - yuk (no offence to the Bar Beach Kiosk) - and ran down the steep grassy hill from the kiosk. Then everything went into slow motion as I tripped on a tuft of grass, stumbled with arms flying in all directions, worryingly eyed the sandstone retaining wall at the bottom of the hill, made a desperate attempt to get my feet back in some kind of working order, managed to get my body airborne just long enough to clear the retaining wall and landed on the soft white sand of the beach without breaking any bones or stubbing any toes. Phew. My little heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour after that and I hadn't paddled a single stroke. I grabbed my paddle, jumped on the board and headed off. I could see Marty 'Secartermuss' Carter ahead of me. He was in second place. He was from Queensland. I was very keen to mow him down. With some frantic paddling, which I'm sure looked very ugly from the beach, I caught him and came up alongside. An IRB shot past and I decided to utilise its wake to get a bit of a run. It worked a treat until it pushed me off course and straight into the nose of Marty's board. A bit of a clash of boards, then a clash of paddles, a small clash of egos and I popped out ahead. Woo hoo. Sorry Marty. He tried to draught me for a while but I slowly pulled away and managed to shake him by the time we got to the party island which was acting as the last turning buoy before the finish line. I caught a good wave not long after that and got a clean run in to finish in second place behind the Victorians. Stoked. That night we hit the Lakeview Hotel for some dinner and dancing, before we got kicked out of the pub! That sounds cooler than it actually was. It was only because we had the kids with us and they weren't allowed to be there after 10pm - probably a good thing as you never know what you'll see at the Lakey, after 10pm, during the Mambo. Sunday I checked the Bar at 5:15am. It didn't look like much so I drove to Pambula which was even smaller. The swell had swung around to the south a bit which meant the Bar would probably be the best option around. So I drove back there. That was a waste of 40 minutes of valuable Mambo surfing time. I checked it again now that the sun had peaked over the horizon. Small but maybe not too bad. I chose the 12'0" Gun again as I wanted to be sure I could pick them up easily. It turned out to be big enough for some of the boys (and girls - Ali Fullagar) on their performance boards to rip the little waves apart and I wished I'd had my 8'8". We had another three hour session which would have lasted longer except we had to get back for the newly created, second round of the Beach to Bar race.    The second, or finals, round of the race would have a new format. A triangular course right in front of the main contest site - with no coffee drinking - hurray. Before we knew it the race was on and Lummers got out in front early, defending the Victorian's title from the previous day. That boy can paddle. The lead changed a few times over the next couple of legs. I was the last to race for our team and I left the beach in fifth place. I had pretty much conceded to fifth and wasn't really trying until I noticed that Ali, who was in fourth, was paddling some big old 12 foot dog of a board and I thought I might just be able to sneak in front of her. I gunned it and managed to overtake her on the downwind leg. Ahhh, fourth. That'll do us. I rounded the last buoy and saw second and third just getting off their boards in the shorebreak. I thought that if I got a wave right then from out the back, I might almost be able to catch one of the them. Whoa, out of nowhere a set came, I paddled hard and got on it. Cinderella story! Second place was almost at the finish line but third place was still mucking around in the shorebreak. By the time I hit the beach DJ was only 20 meters ahead with 30 meters beyond him to the finish line. He seemed to be limping. It might be doable. I put my head down and put everything into it. I felt like a cartoon character - my legs seemed to blur as I ran like I've never run before, ever. I soon reached DJ and overtook him and even though he was a Victorian, I felt a little bad. It was a bit like taking advantage of a wounded Bambi when he looked at me, limping, as I whizzed past. Never mind, this is Mambo, he was from Victoria and it was third place at stake. Sorry DJ. We had a great night at the presentation that evening. I was super stoked that they included some 'old bloke' divisions this year which meant I wasn't up against whipper snapper freaks like Lummers and Jacko. Congratulations to all who scored a place on their respective daises. What a great Mambo. Next year is looking massive - it's the 30 year anniversary. Bring on Mambo-three-oh. | |
