ISOmag Autumn 2010

AUTUMN ISSUE SNAP

- Rider gallery.

SCOOP

- Island Dairies with Ben Mackinnon.

EMPTY

- A gallery of empty waves.

YARN

- An interview with Aidan Dickson.

NOSTALGIA

- The good old days.

ZONE

- Regional news.

SNEAK PEAK

- Coming next issue.

001 ISOMAG, CONTENTS.

COVER: Ben MacKinnon, arguably the best bodyboarder New Zealand has produced, kicks off the inaugural issue of ISOmag Ben Mackinnon Chris Garden ISOMAG, CONTENTS. 002

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Bay of Plenty’s Andrew “Am-Cham” Williams fresh off the boat from a wave starved year in Vanuatu frothing on a St Kilda closeout.

Andrew Williams Chris Garden

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Benny Mac fighting the wind. For the record he didn’t get blown off the back and nailed it perfectly.

Ben Mackinnon Chris Garden

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You’d think living in Kaikoura, which happens to have some of the coldest water temperatures in NZ, would entice Mr Heath Melville to search out some equatorial tubes. Instead he packed his bags and took off Ireland. Here’s Heath having a crack at the notoriously heavy and shallow Rileys, one of Ireland’s bodyboarding treasures.

Heath Melville Thomas Jaud

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Cody Smith came out of nowhere a couple of years ago. He was always referred to as ‘that guy that goes surfing out at Dinners on his own’ and now has a bit of a rep as a silent killer in the water, tearing into slabs like this solo.

Cody Smith Chris Garden

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Oli posted a message on the Isolated forums before leaving his Austrailian homeland for an extended stint on our shores, begging to be shown some waves. The message was recieved loud and clear and he was soon splitting the gas bill to surf a fun day at Dinner Plates.

Olivier Daguet Chris Garden

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Mitch Frew getting some summer loving.

Mitch Frew Chris Garden

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No other wave riding craft can utilise side wash like a bodyboard can. Goose with a side wash assisted reverse.

Hayden Parsons Chris Garden

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Cody rediscovered this wave after years of rumoured bad sand banks. His persistence in checking it paid off.

Cody Smith Chris Garden

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Egged on by Cody on the inside, Mitch Frew takes one of the better waves of the day at a spot called Midgets.

Mitch Frew Chris Garden

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After a frustrating surf of missing set waves and getting tangled in seaweed, Goose had had enough so swapped jobs with photog Garden.

This, the wave of the day, was Gardy’s first and only wave of the session.

Chris Garden Hayden Parsons

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Oli being sun smart.

Olivier Daguet Chris Garden

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Seal Point is one of those waves that you either love or hate with very shallow and very heavy pits being the main draw card.

Pity your average ride lasts about 3 seconds from start to finish. Mitch with approximately 2.1 seconds left until his ride is over.

Mitch Frew Chris Garden

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Was Duncan Smith too late to get into this funnel? Or did he scoop hard while the wave slowed as it bent around the inside reef, allowing him an easy exit? Place your bets.

Duncan Smith Kane McMillan

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Read more about this mystery silhouetted man in this issue’s “Yarn” section.

Aidan Dickson Chris Garden

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Meet Kane McMillan, one of our main photographic contributors, enjoying his day off.

Kane McMillan Sam Brooks

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Boardies in New Zealand? The man known as ‘Dozer’ drops into a solid one in the tropical north.

Blair Dowman Lindsay Butler

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You gotta love the green and blue hues of the South Pacific, even under a cloudy sky. Quentin Roper living the Pacific dream with water so clear you can actually see the spikes on the coral heads.

Quentin Roper Iraultza Partarrieu

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NZ’s fastest and most underrated rider, Dan Charles, manipulating speed into air time off an otherwise average section.

Dan Charles Kane McMillan

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This is what Blaketown is all about. Dirty brown wedges, kinda messy and punchy sections allowing Jake Sims to pull some funky town shit like this.

Jake Sims Ryan Isherwood

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While the others are scraping to get over this beast, Duncan Smith is sitting pretty taking it all in.

Duncan Smith Kane McMillan

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Frewy gets alot of comments about his arse muscles but more often than not they are the brunt of bad jokes from his mates.

Here he puts them to good use by tensing them up to whip a fanning reverse.

Mitch Frew Chris Garden

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All we know about this fella is that his name is Bones and that he is about to get his bones ground up along the shingle bottom as the wave begins to triple-up as it approaches the shore.

Bones Sam Brooks

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Richard McKenna tweaking at NZ’s most popular nudist beach, just as the fading afternoon light puts a chill in the air to send the bare bums home.

Richard McKenna Kane McMillan

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Don’t you reckon black and white photos make things look that much heavier? Truth be told, the weather conditions this day (which encompassed sleet, hail and a thick blanket of clouds) made lighting so bad the black and white filter in photoshop didn’t need to be cranked too high. Nature did it for us.

Ben Mackinnon Chris Garden

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Sam Wells’ profile seems to have faded since winning the prestigious Isolated Challenge in 2006. His skills certainly haven’t.

Air revo at his old stopming ground.

Sam Wells Ryan Isherwood

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Dick McKenna inverting his way to second place in the 2010 Dion Wells Memorial Contest.

Richard McKenna Chris Garden Sam Wells weaving through a tasty Blackhead tunnel during the open mens final of the Dion Wells.

Sam Wells Chris Garden

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Chris Garden

Island Diaries Ben MacKinnon unlocks his diary and talks us through life on a South Pacific island surf trip - something that many of our ISOmag readers will be all too familiar with.

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Chris Garden

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Quentin Roper confirming the rumours of a mini chopes style wave.

Quentin Roper Chris Bago

It's Christmas Day! I open my present of Sultana Bran then cruise to the shittiest place I could find to hire a scooter.

The South Pacific, what can you really say? We come here each year for mad pits, mad ramps, a mad tan and mad, mad European backpackers living the Overseas Experience dream.

I arrive the day before Christmas because I have no friends and no one loves me. My bodyboard and I have an intimate relationship however, and we don’t mind spending Christmas together sitting inside a big pit and lining up an air reverse section. I spend the first three nights in a dorm at the backpackers, waiting for Richard ‘Dick’ McKenna to catch the next flight from NZ - he missed his earlier one 061 ISOMAG, SCOOP: ISLAND DIARIES.

and obviously no one loves him either as he was planning a Christmas in the islands as well.

It’s Christmas Day! I open my present of Sultana Bran then cruise to the shittiest place I could find to hire a scooter. I get my second Christmas present in the form of a cheap rate with no deposit. My ride - a bullshit, falling-apart-at-the-seams ‘Tiger’. A real local gem. Next stop, the local supermarket, where I am followed through the aisles by wandering chickens. I always know it’s another Pacific Island trip because I spend $30 for my

week’s worth of food and my trolley consists of rice, sugar, milk powder and coffee. I only travel one way - on a shoestring budget!

A wave called Seashells brings all that I have come here for. For those who haven’t surfed it, it’s pretty much the most fun, punchy, peaky wave imaginable. Each wave produces hollow pits to wrapping ramps and power hack walls. The only let down is it breaks over razor-sharp coral and urchins - the smaller it is the shallower it is.

Later that day “Clarrow” has below sea level, mini Chopes-like left hand

shallower it is, and we are talking 2 ft deep styles on the inside. Later that day “Clarrow” has below sea level mini Chopes left hand peaks to dry wash end sections over 2-3ft deep water, and I’m laughing because Dick is a kook for missing his flight. Five hours logged for the day.

And that’s the routine for three days, fun 2-3ft Clarrow and Seashells.

Working hard to eradicate my white ‘Dunedin Tan’ and getting third degree burns because I am retarded and can’t put sunscreen on properly. I meet another NZ booger, Quentin

peaks to dry wash end sections. I’m laughing to myself because Dick is a kook for missing his flight. Five hours surfing logged for the day.

further down the beach - a short, righthand peak with a heavy barrel and end bowl which wraps onto semi-dry reef.

And that’s the routine for three days – surfing fun, two to three foot Clarrow and Seashells; and working hard to eradicate my ‘Dunedin Tan’, in the process getting third degree burns because I am retarded and can’t put sunscreen on properly. I meet another NZ booger out at Clarrow: Quentin Roper who’s been here for few weeks and could easily be Michael Novy’s stunt double. Later I hit ‘Sneakys’

Richard ‘Dick’ McKenna arrives in the early afternoon, so it’s finally time to move out of Euro-trashes dorm of drinking. I am greeted by a white, slightly overweight guy - too much time in China, Richard, you have your work cut out to catch up to me! Sadly, Richard McKenna tans hard, lives off rice, surfs his brains out, picks up chicks at Dive courses and ends the trip looking like Fabio.

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Seashells end section, tunnel time.

Ben Mackinnon Iraultza Partarrieu

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I decide to try to backdoor a left. I come out and my whole board gets ripped out from underneath me as the tail snags on dry reef.

We have an average but fun session at ‘Matahaeres’ - a point-break-like reef, where we refine our team grovel skills for the next BBSNZ event. Four hours surfing logged for the day. Living the dream.

We hit Matahaeres again in the morning and are greeted by four foot peaks reeling off. It’s two hours of power.

Dick and I luck into an epic session back here in the evening with six foot freight-training lefts. There is only one way to surf it at this size: bottom turn and gun it down the line at max speed. Dick pulls into a heavy six foot peak as I scream at him from the shoulder. Good boy. My scooter stuffs out on the way home. I love The Islands.

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A new day dawns, and we get a great session at Avanti Left, a small two foot but super fun and ripable. It’s a full trade-off surf with Quinn, Dick and I going wave for wave for four hours straight, trying to one-up each other in perfect waves. Inverts, backflips, ARS’s, air reverses, carving reverses and barrels: it’s all there, but it was soon to end as this was to be the beginning of the slow period of the trip – two to three foot cross-shore days at Seashells right for a week straight.

I get a pimp new scooter and decide not to support the local scooter-hire community.

Alex “Squawker” Dade arrives a few days later. Dick and I decide to officially start the ‘going out and getting

maggot’ phase of the trip. Dick does his hair just right while listening to girly electro music like ‘Lights’, which I sort of begun to like. I don’t have the heart to tell him he looks a bit fat in his jeans and his hair is a little flat.

It’s the standard ‘Retards’ and ‘Wombats’ bar circuit. We sit in the corner, we look cool… but we just don’t get any action. We need Squawker, he is fearless in the face of any woman, no matter how hot! Euro-trash women dominate the bar and I asked myself why Sam Peters never came along… oh, that’s right, he had a girlfriend, and The Islands are not the place to have your girlfriend with you! The evening ends, we pick up Squawker, and now it’s three in a room. Shit is going

to hit the fan because it is New Year’s Eve tomorrow!

The last day of 2009 consists of surfing in the morning, drinking in the afternoon and heading to Mural Beach for a beach party that doesn’t quite deliver. Note to self… go to the bars first and beach last, not the other way round. Squawker livens things up by getting absolutely catatonic and sleazing onto an overweight Canadian chick with the foulest mouth out.

We creep onto a group of hot IrishCanadians, dance the night away and take lots of bad photos. A new year in The Islands is never a bad thing, even if it was a bit average as far as New Year’s go.

A new year and a new routine begins - Yoga in the morning, surf average Seashells, sleep, tan, go on an island road trip and take way too many photos, then hit Seashells again and talk smack around the tables outside in the evening. Alex is surfing well with sick looping rolls and split leg ‘$2 hooker’ inverts off the closeouts.

A few days into this routine I have my first meeting with the reef. It’s fun, two foot Seashells rights at dead low tide.

There are a few odd lefts with epic barrels to air reverse sections. I get a few sick pits to inverts and rolls on the rights. I decide to try to backdoor a left. I come out and my whole board gets ripped out from underneath me as the tail snags on dry reef.

I plough up the reef on my hands, followed by my elbows and torso. The impact is so heavy it knocks the wind out of me. I get pushed up and over the reef and into the deeper lagoon of the atoll, barely able to breathe and with an arm that won’t move. I try to stand but I can’t. Dick and Squawker come in and I am pissing blood out of both my arms and hands; and my springsuit is torn to shreds. I limp back, worried that my hand may be broken, but thankful that my arm isn’t.

I hop into the shower with a disinfected dish brush and go to town on my cuts. Dr Squawker uses his magic antiseptic spray while I bite on a towel for five minutes.

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Benny Mac with a late arvo boost off a Seashells end section.

Ben Mackinnon Chris Garden

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Island scoop Quentin Roper Chris Bago

You gonna paddle out? He asks.

I will if you do!

The next day is tiny. I do sweet F.A and watch movies and a little porn. I lie in my own filth and bleeding body parts and piss Squawker off. Squawker and Dick decide to go cruising for chicks on a romantic scooter mission, though I think they are wasting their time as there are two slightly-mannish German backpackers who are waaaaaay into them.

So begins the final third of our time in The Islands, a phase defined by the heaviest waves of the trip. Four days of amazing Seashells right: four foot one day, six foot the next, up to eight foot the following day, and then back down to a perfect four foot. The level of surfing is off the chain, with riders 069 ISOMAG, SCOOP: ISLAND DIARIES.

from France and Aussie along with a few local rippers. The eight foot day blows minds and I turn up to the biggest and most perfect Seashells I have ever seen. I stand in the car park: no one is out. Another Aussie booger turns up. “You gonna paddle out?” he asks. “I will if you do”, I reply, and so begins an incredible session.

day and I smack an invert off a crazy end bowl. It was a special day, one we will always remember, and a day that made me proud to be a bodyboarder, surrounded by other bodyboarders taking on an epic session without a show of fear. A lot of mates are made that day and Facebook user names exchanged.

I paddle out wondering if we can actually scoop into this peak, it’s that heavy! The Frenchy christens the session by scooping into a solid six foot peak. Barrels are traded and it’s so heavy that there is no option but to drive through and pray. Dick and Squawker paddle out and snag a few, Quinn gets the biggest wave of the

And so comes the end of my trip.

Dick and Squawker stay on for a bit.

They fight, they make up, and they fight again; such is young love. Quinn stays on as well and scores a few more epic days. I get back to NZ and get my hand x-rayed as it’s still swollen - it’s broken. But The Islands will always be The Islands.

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Benny Mac poised on the second biggest day of the trip, as his kiwi counterparts look on from the channel.

Ben Mackinnon Iraultza Partarrieu

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Some people reckon that photos don’t tell the full picture, and that is absolutely true in this case. What this photo doesn’t tell us is that this day was plagued with wash-throughs, closeouts and river-like rips. What this photo does tell us though, is that amongst the chaos there were legitimate 8ft smoking pits. Out there!

Chris Garden

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Mexico? Nup. France? Could be. Try somewhere along the often-overlooked coastline of the eastern Bay of Plenty and you might find something like this.

John Rutter

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Too perfect for words!

Chris Garden

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New angle of a wave that is a popular summer choice for bodyboarders and surfers alike.

Chris Garden

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It’s been a while since a Mid Rock session has been documented let alone surfed. Good to see it’s still doing it’s thing.

Chris Garden

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St Kilda shorey.

Chris Garden

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Gaping pit moments before it rolls up the shingle beach.

Ryan Isherwood

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A deep south reef break complete with seaweed gatherers unaware of what lies beyond them.

Sam Brooks

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This is a previously unphotographed wave called Cappuccinos. The milky water and light fluffy foam made naming this break all too easy. Have you had your fix?

Kane McMillan

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So close yet so far.

Sam Brooks

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If we had to pick a shot of an empty wave that sums up New Zealand bodyboarding this would be it. Shingle beach, brown water and a crisp offshore at everyones favorite playground Blaketown.

Ryan Isherwood

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Just an average day at Skid Marks, but what makes this photo so damn cool is the morning light creating flares and orbs on the lens and the perfect fang like lip about to break the waters surface.

Chris Garden

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Barrels of fun.

Ryan Isherwood

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New Zealand’s northeastern coastline potentially has dozens of setups like this that only break once or twice a year. Would you risk a session at your favourite spot to search out this setup?

Andre Apel

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A very special moment in time at a Northland beachie.

Lindsay Butler

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Isabella Harrex

Aidan Dickson Being our first issue, we really wanted to interview someone that epitomised bodyboarding in this country. We had to start with a bang. We needed someone that lived and breathed it, someone who was well respected for their competition surfing and stylish charging. Someone who has put a lot into the sport, but at the same time who hasnt had too much exposure. One man ticked all these boxes. Ladies and gentlemen, meet ISOmags first yarn interrogation - Mr Aidan Dickson.

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Aidos proving he is still as comfortable as ever in the heavy stuff.

Aidan Dickson Chris Garden

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If there’s one thing Aidos is good at, it’s sneaking into the best waves of the session. He’s not out the back waiting and competing for the set waves like everyone else - he’s too mellow for that sort of carry on. He’s happy to just go down to his own peak, even though it might be smaller, pick off a worthy nugget, and rip the shit out of it.

Aidan Dickson Chris Garden

I often wonder how radically different my life would be if my parents never moved to New Zealand.

Id probably be a pasty white guy working in an office or something.

Aidan, now 28, is in some ways a man of contrasts, something that is hard to spot at face value. He appears very grounded and level-headed, intelligent and so mellow that it seems that nothing can throw him off course. But there once was a time when Aidos was highly-competitive in a quiet kind of way and to this day still has his moments of complete absent-mindedness where all logic and common sense goes out the window.

my car for a whole day while I was at work, on one of the busiest days of the year, with my Ipod, road bike, camera, wallet and cell phone in it, and no one took it! Too many to list!”

“Arghh, where do I start!?! Losing my keys, wallet, sunnies… basically every day of my life; missing a flight home from the South Pacific by a whole day; leaving my credit card in an ATM in Oamaru on my way to Christchurch Airport for a world trip; leaving my passport in a departure lounge in France; leaving my keys in the door of

“I often wonder how radically different my life would be if my parents never moved to New Zealand. I’d probably be a pasty white guy working in an office or something.”

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Not many people realise that Aidos was born in London and lived there for the first couple of years of his life, before moving to the more recreationfriendly shores of Dunedin, New Zealand.

Like most of us, his love for riding waves began on a family holiday to Jacksons Bay in Westland. Over the

next few years, spurred on by a little bit of sibling rivalry with his brother Felix, he was testing the waters of St Clair and the surrounding beaches.

He cites the versatility and raw natural talent of Cantabrians Jon Blackwood and James Blair as the guys that motivated him to pull on a frozen wettie in the depths of a Deep South winter.

His riding was pushed to new levels thanks to partners in crime Todd Robertson and Mitch Frew.

Eventually a competitive irk found its way into his system and Aidos launched a full-on attack on the New Zealand tour, winning the cadets in 1996 and achieving an emphatic victory in a stacked junior field in his home waters in 1999. It got to a point where competition became everything, and winning was everything too,

not to mention sponsorship offers and photo spreads in Riptide and Australian Bodyboarder.That’s usually when the old ‘tall poppy syndrome’ kicks in among peers, but Aidos remained humble, likeable and respected within the bodyboarding community. Inside he was fighting his own battle.

“I got super-competitive and got real hard on myself when I didn’t perform.

I was training heaps and surfing as many hours as possible… and it started to ruin my amp. It ended up becoming like a chore, which should never ever happen and I started feeling guilty if I didn’t go out for at least two hours per day. Suddenly I realised ‘hey this is fucken stupid man! What’s the point in burning out and not enjoying something you’ve loved for so long?’ So I decided to surf

only when I felt like it and just work, save, travel and get barrelled or hit the odd section if I felt like it, surf a surfboard if I felt like it, go for a bike ride if I felt like it and not feel guilty.

Life is much freer and happier that way.”

With the flick of a switch, he went from competition-possessed to so mellow that he barely registered on the radar - a fate similar to that of a lot of other top riders this country has produced.

Many feared that yet another one of our top international competition hopes had fallen off the radar after getting so close.

“I have many things I’m passionate about and bodyboarding is still one of them. It just has a ‘right place and time’ now. I still get super-amped; I

just wait until that amp hits me before I go out. There’s no point in going out for a surf if you’re not gonna fully enjoy yourself!”

Aside from bodyboarding, travelling is another passion which, granted, stemmed from bodyboarding. Aidos has amassed almost 40 different passport stamps on his well-worn passport. A good chunk of them are countries with warm tropical barrels: Costa Rica, Indo, Tahiti and South Africa, to name a few, but also many off-the-beaten-track countries such as Bulgaria, Bosnia and Romania, indicating his desire to venture outside of his bodyboarding comfort zone. Usually his travels are a mix of the two extremes with one of his favourites being a journey to Central America.

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It’s not often you get to see the effect the bottom of a bodyboard has on water. Aidos jamming.

Aidan Dickson Chris Garden

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Isabella Harrex

Id been travelling in Panama on basically zero dollars sleeping on beaches and hitching for two months.

“In 2004 I’d been travelling in Panama on basically zero dollars, sleeping on beaches and hitching for two months.

I was then flown to Ecuador for the World Surfing Games as part of the New Zealand team, and hooked up with my brother and his mates who I hadn’t seen in ages and was treated like a rock star! It was pretty crazy to go from sleeping on beaches and eating plain rice and bananas, to getting pimped out in a four star hotel with a massive buffet breakfast.”

What Aidos failed to mention was that he finished 16th in the Open Bodyboard against some of the world’s top bodyboarders, A placing that no Kiwi has come close to since. In the same event his brother Felix, a highly respected NZ big wave surfer, smashed his way to 9th in the Open Surfing, again, a result that no Kiwi has ever repeated.

While proud of his achievements, they pale in comparison to the other experiences that travel has brought him.

He always seems to meet the right people and by just going with the flow finds himself in some crazy situations in some of the most beautiful parts of the world.

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“I worked in southern Spain for a while. Heaps of good waves and you could see Morocco from where I was staying on a clear day. I got a ride from France to London in a private jet once with one of the guys I worked for and they got me to house sit for two weeks in their 4.6 million Euro mansion if I fed the dogs and watered the plants! Hung out and cooked a few meals for the guy who invented Grand Theft Auto for three months in New York, which is an awesome place with some pretty good beach break wedges. I used to get the subway down to the beach where there had been 120 gang murders in the last year!”

If you haven’t guessed yet, Aidos has followed the career path of a travelling chef, which enables him to find work relatively easy wherever he goes.

It’s a sometimes stressful lifestyle but more often than not the pros out weigh the cons.

“You don’t tend to get a bad rep if you stay in a job for a short period of time because you can usually find work anywhere as everybody likes to eat!”

He’s spent many years perfecting his dishes, learning off the best, and

applying his own touch - a similar approach to how he learnt to bodyboard.

“The main rule that you should stick to is that if you have fresh and quality ingredients, then don’t muck around with them too much. Present it for what it is. Don’t cover it in elaborate sauces and dressings or you won’t be able to taste the actual main ingredient. Take time and spend a little extra on getting good produce. Simple is best.”

So what now? Will we see the competition flame reignited? What country will his next postcard arrive from?

What’s next on the menu for Aidan Dickson?

“I just want to be happy and do the things I love - hang out with my friends, my family and my girl; explore places I haven’t been; bodyboard, stand up surf and ride my bike; stay healthy, keep fit and cook good food; improve; meet interesting people; share my experiences with others; teach, learn and appreciate what I have.”

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It’s probably been a good 10 years since Aidos had a session like this at St Kilda. Back to the roots.

Aidan Dickson Chris Garden

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4 life

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Casey Keen, Dinner Plates - 24/3/07 All four Isolated Challenges were blessed with some of the best waves that New Zealand has to offer. Dinner Plates coughed up a classic day for the 2007 competitiors. Dinners virgin Casey Keen lucked into the wave of the day with this tasty green pit.

Casey Keen Chris Garden

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Mitch Frew, Keiki, Hawaii - 11/12/06 Love it or hate it, Hawaii is a place every bodyboarder should visit sometime in their life. If scrapping over waves at Pipe isn’t your thing, you can always throw yourself around in the shoreys then sit back on the beach and watch the action unfold with a cold 40oz in your hand. This was our first day in Hawaii, and Mitch, straight off the plane decided to thrash out the jetlag, Keiki styles. Needless to say, he was finding sand in strange places for months after this drop.

Mitch Frew Chris Garden

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Sam Wells, Tandoors - 06/09/08 Wellsy got spat out of so many deep barrels that day so it was only fitting to name this spot Tandoors - only the cylindrical ovens weren’t for Indian food but Sam’s big rig.

Sam Wells Ryan Isherwood

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125 ISOMAG, ZONE: REGIONAL NEWS.

Nth

Akl

Summer was a non-event. Best waves had were either on Northland / Auckland anniversary weekend or if you were super keen, a mere 10 hours on the road (each way) rewarded you with pumping spit - Blair Dowman and some other boogs from up north making that epic journey!

Predictably, both the cyclone swells fizzed but hopefully there’s a few more up there somewhere getting ready to destroy! The last one looked so promising that the notorious NIG placed some last minute calls. Unfortunately it was to no avail.

Bring on winter!

- Blackman

Bop

In late December things started to settle a bit and January started to show some good potential with banks starting to form at some beaches, while other beaches still remain totally fucked thanks to El Nino. A couple of days here and there were actually fucking pumping though. Dave Biddle, Brendon Ashton, Frosty and I lucked into some sick kegs at. (there are no secrets in Auckland, but there’ll be no locations mentioned here...).

coasts and the boardies have been broken in this year at last. That east coast cyclone that everyone was amped on didn’t amount to much, but who knows what late summer will produce up there in the super-heated El Nino hellhole.

- JK

February has been pretty sick so far, with some good banks at a couple of beachies holding lots of size. Dave Biddle took line honours in the ‘fuck off, he didn’t make that keg did he?’ department. The water temp is a beautifully tepid 22 degrees on both

Rag

Rumor has it the Mt ‘Reef’ is showing signs of life again after some of the local kids had a two foot onshore day recently. Local gay Navare was quoted as saying: “think the place might show some more potential next swell”. You could say that about the whole east coast with only a couple of real swells this summer, neither producing much, although there were a few spots working if you knew where to look.

Fourteen year old Mount Maunganui super-grom Ezekial Ngakuru has been ripping, taking out the U16 Arato Comp. Meanwhile, Luke Elliot forgot

he was on the west coast and decided to take his truck for a spot of fishing during the contest. Closer to home, he almost got it stuck again on a trip down the coast a couple of weekends back.

with the ski resulted in being lost miles out at sea in a rain storm wondering which way was home!

Over on the west coast there’s been no shortage of swell this summer. It’s not always been great booger conditions so the Mossong bro’s have turned into boogs that stand-up or stand-ups that boog, you choose!?!

But in saying that, they have done their fair share of traveling and hunting for some decent waves. A recent east coast reconnaissance mission

- Paulie

So all in all West is Best, East is Least!

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Wtgn

One word describes much of the latesummer season in and around the Gizzy coast: onshore.

Wainui Beach has only had a few good banks, and with just the odd roaming storm to work with, it’s been slim pickings there. Early sea-breezes through much of January turned whatever clean potential there was into slop. Tuamotu Island turned on for a couple days, as did the crowds.

The saving grace this summer has been the couple of cyclonic systems that have battered the area through late January and February. These provided some rare gold for those lucky enough to select the right place and time. With a veritable plethora of nooks and crannies, the fractured nature of the surrounded coastline provides options for almost any wind and swell combination. The majority of the best waves from late summer have been found in all the odd spots with the usual haunts going largely untouched.

- J Fez

The Wellington region has been in the clutches of yet another spate of flat spells. The meager south swells begin to dry up in December and generally don’t reappear until the first real southerly fronts return to ravage the capital in early autumn.

There are always exceptions to the rule, however, and the summer that heralded the end of the decade proved to be one such exception.

While the Joe-publics of Wellington shook their fists at the gods as their precious days off were swallowed up by grey skies and rain, the local boogs rubbed their hands together as the isobars aligned.

Damon, and Paul aka “The Bear”, locked down some solid days at Breaker Bay. Dan Fili got amongst the action, before snapping his pushbike in half at speed and missing some of the later summer swells nursing injuries. Danny Waugh reported “pumping” corner in the New Year and was a standout, snavelling some solid barrels and big ramps.

Sam Peters took advantage of the school holidays and spent the summer break clocking up kilometres chasing swells in the lower North Island. During one solo mission to the Wairarapa east coast, Sammy ended up sideways in a ditch after being run off the road by a crazy hippy in a house bus. It turned out that this “crazy hippy” was none other then ISOmag photog and perpetual nomad, Jorin Sievers.

Meanwhile, Richard McKenna spent a welcome month in the South Pacific after a six-month hiatus running facto-

127 ISOMAG, ZONE: REGIONAL NEWS.

ries and propping up the brothel industry in China. Apparently the break from the ocean had done Richard no harm and from all accounts he was surfing better then ever. Travel partner (and life partner) Ben MacKinnon reported that Richard grew some balls on this trip and was really pushing on the bigger days, with huge inverts and tight air revies over the shallow end sections. Richard continued this explosive surfing upon his return to NZ, winning the ARATO Pro comp.

As for the West Coast crew, it also has been a dry summer, with not much swell at all. Never shy of the occasional swell chase, T’bay bum Duncan Smith has been locking into some solid mid-week sessions in the Wairarapa. Local photog Kane McMillan has also had a wave starved summer, with the birth of his first son Max keeping him busy. He did manage a solid session with the local creeps Sam Martin, Duncan Smith, Scott Empson and Pete Webber at the local hot spot, with four foot heavy pits.

Unfortunately it was too good to be true, with the wind going sea breezy only an hour into the potentially epic session.

The summer of 2009/2010 will be remembered for its abundance of waves on the South Coast and if this foreshadows the waves to come, then bring on autumn!

- Sam Peters & Kane McMillian

Chch

The Christchurch region has placed its bid once again for the worst place to surf in the country. With few swells from the east and northeast, the boys have been left high and dry, so countless kilometres have been added to odometers and gas money has taken top priority spending-wise.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, and the terrible waves in town have given Sam Wells and Ryan Isherwood plenty of good reasons to travel.

The boys have clocked up roughly 100 hours driving and 55 hours in the water with the petrol bill totaling a whopping $700 each. Countless good sessions at Blaketown were had along with a few epic days closer to home. They have definitely earned every drop of swell.

Ben Hodgson, along with his trusty surf companion Bonez, decided enough was enough and jumped on a plane headed for the South Pacific.

The fellas will be enjoying sunny skies and waves for a couple of weeks and the dismal surf back home will be the last thing on their mind.

Lastly, there is a rumour floating around that longtime shredder (nowadays full-on poker fiend ) Adam Mclean has had enough of the big city and is heading back to Greymouth the small township where he grew up and became one of New Zealand’s finest bodyboarders. Let’s hope someone there can get Ads frothing on the boog again instead of frothing over a royal flush.

- Ryno

The month of December was basically shithouse, the weather was atrocious and so was the surf.

From the 11th of January for three to four weeks straight, the coast was blessed with uninterrupted sun and moderate-sized swells which hit the fresh shorey banks at b-town nicely.

Locals Tezza Ferguson, Kingy and myself lapped up the shoreys HARD! Tezza has been traveling south of the tip head and scoring rivermouths left, right, and centre. He’s getting used to surfing solo these days. Shift work will do that to you but he’s not complaining, that’s for sure.

‘Tis a shame we haven’t seen much in the way of groms coming out at Blako’s. What we do have is an increase of Chicks on Lids! Local Sarzie Eastman has managed to get some other local girls onto the boog. Kim Springer and Lydia Nimmo have been seen out at Blako’s. Keep it up wahines!

The shocking run of waves in 2009 has spilled over into 2010 with summer in the Deep South producing a mixed bag, weather and wave wise.

December and January were basically a write-off in the wave department and it wasn’t helped by the winter-like weather conditions.

Come the start of February, the summer waves and sunshine finally kicked in, with sweltering temperatures and clean summer wedges most days on the peninsula. It’s even been good enough for Chris Schmelz to have a dabble.

Roll on those autumn swells!

- Shroom

Out of retirement came Jade de Goldi, with rare sightings at blako’s recently.

Blow-ins have been quite manageable lately - Kaikoura local, Nathan, spent a solid three to four weeks on the coast and scooped himself into the shorey banks most days. Ryno and Wellsy came over to the hound one weekend and enjoyed some fresh middle banks at B-town.

A pretty good summer really, as usual a late start with regards to weather and waves. We had more than a few days where the water temp was up to around 18 degrees. Can’t complain!

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Tim Hutton scoops into a wedge at Midgets - the spot that shone through a wave-starved summer in the deep south.

Tim Hutton Chris Garden

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Chris Garden

Sneak Peak Coming next issue... Nope it's not Dinner Plates! See more of this new discovery in ISOmag issue two, out June 1st.

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