We arrived in Melbourne just after Christmas on the 29th of December for the Quiksilver Jetty Pro Junior. Dad and I were originally going to just hire out a van and sleep in the back but I had been talking to Cahill Bell-Waren who used to surf the Pro Junior series last year and lives at Bells Beach and he offered for us to stay at his house, which was great.  Also staying at his house was Perth Standlick from Bondi and Mitch Crews from the Gold Coast , who were also surfing in the Pro Junior at Bells.  We still used our van to travel around in but it was really good to have somewhere to shower and a warm bed to sleep in every night.


The few days before the contest I just spent surfing with dad, Cahill, Perth or Mitch. On New Year’s Eve we went along the great ocean road to check out Johana which is a really picturesque, good surf break about one and half hours west of Bells. The waves were pumping and we surfed for sooooooo long. Later on that day we went to Port Campbell and had dinner there which is a really pretty little town with loads of good waves everywhere.

When the contest started the swell was showing that there would be enough swell to run it every day at Bells. But unfortunately the tides were wrong for Bells during the time we were there and the contest was run in about two to three foot fun Jan Juc.  The girls didn’t surf for the first couple of days of the contest so I spent that time just cruising at Cahill’s place drawing and playing the wii.


Every night we would have a tournament playing wii bowling. It was so fun everyone played, even my dad. But Mitch dominated with his player ‘sani’ beating Cahill’s high score every time. We also took it in turns to make dinner which was amusing watching the boys trying to cook. Perth was actually a good cook though and his meals tasted delicious haha!

One afternoon instead of playing the wii we organised a basketball tournament at the back of Cahill’s house. We invited over India Payne and Nikki Van Dyke to play as well. We had teams of three and were rotating depending on which team was winning. Everyone was really getting into it and we were taking it so seriously haha. I never had really played basketball before so I don’t really think that any one wanted me to be on their team. It was still fun to play though and just focus on something different for a while.


The waves for the finals of the contest were about two to three foot again and really fun. It was mainly a right. If you got the right one though you could fit three to four turns in.

The presentations were a change from what they normally would be because there was a massive truck in the place of a stage and a band performed there before they presented the trophies. I had heaps of fun at Bells and it was great receiving first place accolades on that type of podium.

-Felicity Palmateer