First day at the 'office'

First day at the office

Tiago Pires talking to Head Judge Richie Porter and Contest Director Colin Fitch 

The trip out of Newquay started simply enough  - train up to Paddington and then out to Heathrow and check-in was straightforward, but then, with a Turban clearly too tight and, therefore constricting brain function, the gentleman at zone Y for oversize baggage tried to feed Nic Muscroft's two new contest boards through the conveyor scanner SIDEWAYS! Not a great idea in my mind and so he got a piece of it for free. Then, slightly rattled after the attempt to try fold them in half, I forgot to take a couple yoghurts out of my Laptop bag when going thru' security and was pulled aside. 

This allowed the staff further opportunity and a swab of my bag set off alarms and I was taken aside for anti-terrorist police to quietly come over to perform further swab tests and again the alarm was awakened. “We  have established extensive chemical traces in your bag Sir!”, so off we walked for a little chat to establish exactly who I was and what I do. It didn't take long for them to be satisfied that I had taken my computer in to work for Pani to have a look at and that in the laminating bay at Quiver my bag had absorbed a large dose of resin, epoxy, acetone, catalyst, styrene, xylene and accelerator W and so the machine thought it had hit the jackpot and had been trying to pay me out. At last I was through and onto the flight.

Arriving in Ballito, Nic came over and we talked shop for a while. He was really stoked to be back in South Africa, taking hold of his new boards and I headed off into the country to catch up with family for the rest of the weekend before returning to the Boathouse – the ASP base for the Mr Price Pro.

Monday morning we were up at 5:30 to get our brekko down and headed across the little beachfront town to the contest location to run three trials heats to find 2 wildcards to get into the opening round of the main event. Those two were Michael February aka”M-Feb”, the SA Pro Junior #1 and former WCT surfer Davey Weare. The surf was only 3' - 4' with a light crosshore wind blowing but it was eventually decided that although the conditions are looking a little sketchy for later in the week, we would still call the contest off for the day as the judges were struggling to find scores above 7's. 

The call is a three-way affair of agreement between the surfer's rep, the Contest Director and the Head Judge. So it was a quick first day for us to get the contest going, but here we are, ready to start the Round of 96 tomorrow morning at 07:15 local time – one hour ahead of UK time. There is a live webcast available on www.mrpricepro.com as well as loads of other info you may like to see but I will try to give you a bit of an inside angle each day – no promises though as Africa is a wild place where anything can, and does happen.