So I woke up this morning to Arrawarra at 2-3ft and glassy...but I have been struck down with the popular problem of bad ribs. About half the people here have suffered from a similar problem with different levels of severeness. Mine seems to be very minor at the moment so have had a day out the water in the hope it will feel better tomorrow. One of the others was out for 2 weeks!
Im now also getting pain in my elbows which, Rhys says, is where your triceps attach to your elbows. Again, hopefully not going in the water today will have helped.
Instead of surfing I went with Paul (who also has bad ribs) on a walk to Mulawarra. It was the biggest surf I have seen in Australia over there! 5-6ft barrels closing out across the bay. Only one local paddled out, attempted a few waves but soon got back out. Tried to get some photos but the camera doesn't really have good enough zoom.
We walked on from there to Mulaway, which was rubbish. Onshore and closing out. As we sat watching the bay some sort of big animal jumped out the water and crashed back down again.. We concluded very small whale or, more likely, some sort of shark. Then when we got back to Arrawarra we saw about 10 dolphins lounging around about 10-15m from my surf group on their lesson. There is unbelivable amounts of wild life round here.
There was a minibus going to Coffs Harbour this afternoon so I jumped on that an went to the shopping mall. Managed to bank some bargain boardshorts which was great. Now just waiting for tea and chilling in the hammocks. Hope the rain stops tomorrow...
(p.s. photo is of a book about Kelly slater I want to get when I come back to the UK).