The Victorian Surfing Championships Bells Beach 1970
MURRAY WALDING
As we drove down the road into Bells, we caught a fleeting glimpse through the scrub of swell lines so we knew it was big. We piled out of the car in the gravel car park above the beach, full of enthusiasm and bravado- key ingredients when you’re about to enter your first Victorian Surfing Championships. A solid set broke across the main break at Bells. We caught a glimpse of the long lines of swell as we drove down the gravel road so we knew it was big. We parked on the cliff top and piled out of the car, full of enthusiasm and bravado- key ingredients when you’re about to enter your first Victorian Surfing Championships. Especially when the championships were being held at Bells. Dark green walls brushed smooth by a light offshore breeze broke across the small cove. It was big but nothing that looked too hard to handle, and the late summer sun and warm breeze promised a day of great surf. Yet there were a few long faces on the cliff top peering out to sea. There were downcast looks, mutterings and nervous whispers. One of the guys from back home was heading back to his car. ‘Where are you guys off to?’ ‘We’re going to head around to Point Impossible.’ ‘You’re not going in the comp?’ He rolled his eyes at me as he climbed into the front seat of his car. ‘Come on, it’s not all that big,’ I laughed. ‘Have you seen one of the big sets Muzz?’ ‘Yeah, I just watched a set then. It’s not all that big... well it’s big, but it’s not that big.’ ‘Crikey mate, what you just saw wasn’t a big set. Wait until you see a really big set!’ he wound his window up and quickly reversed out of the car-park and wheelied up the gravel track that led away from Bells. I walked back to the edge of the cliffs and heard the marshal announce the next heat over the P.A. Five minutes later there was another call. Two competitors still hadn’t collected their competition singlets. They never showed up. The remaining contestants lined up at the water’s edge and waited for the heat to start. I looked out to sea as four dark lines of swell grew in size, stood up and in a great show of spray and power broke with a thunderous roar. This was a setthe kind of set my mates had warned me about and now it was bloody obvious why those two competitors
had failed to collect their competition singlets. The waves were bloody huge But I’d already entered the event so I was faced with choosing between two evils. I could slink away and find somewhere to surf with smaller waves and right-off the entrance fee I’d paid, or paddle out in the giant surf, try and catch three waves to qualify for the next round... and try not to drown in the process. Riding these waves wasn’t so much of a problem. It was the fear of wipingout, or being caught paddling out by these monster waves that really bugged me. When the surf at Bells gets big, a fierce rip runs along the beach which can carry the careless, or the half-drowned, into the tumult of the shallow reef at Bells neighboring breakWinkipop. The rip was well known to all Torquay surfers who had christened it the Winkipop Express. In waves this big, paddling against the Winkipop Express was all but impossible and getting caught in its clutches would mean a severe pounding, and in a contest that would mean your heat would be over long before you could paddle back to the take off . There was also a reasonable chance that you might drown. Slinking away suddenly seemed like a good option. So I sat on the cliff tops and waited with my heart in my mouth until the marshals called my heat. Monster sets continued to steam shoreward every ten minutes or so and even the in-between waves were fearsome in size and strength. Very few heats hit the water with a full complement of surfers. I watched on nervously and tried to convince myself that the swell would drop as the day went on. So I sat and watched nervously until the event reached the Junior Men’s division. One of the competitors was a young kid I knew and I watched him as he nervously waxed his board on the gravelly beach sand and made his way to the water’s edge, astounded that the organisers were sending juniors out in surf this big. It was okay to send out some of the hairy-chested older surfers who were at home in waves this big, but not for these kids. The kid I knew was only fourteen but watching him on the beach made up my mind for
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me. If he was going out, then I figured I had to as well, or else my reputation on the beach at home would be toast. They had made their way almost to the take-off when another monster set appeared and steamrolled its way through the break. Some of them pushed their boards away and dived deep under the rampaging white water. Others rolled over and held onto their boards like grim death, but it was no use. When the set finally cleared, there were six heads left bobbing in the white water. No-one had managed to hold onto their board. Some did manage to swim to their boards and scramble back on, only to be pushed all the way back to the beach while the rest had to make the long and dangerous swim across the Winkipop Express. When my heat finally came along, I grabbed my contest singlet and with my heart in my mouth, headed to the beach. There were five other surfers in the heat and together we walked out onto the reef beneath the cliffs . As we waited for the heat to start the first gusts of a westerly change swept through. Before we even had a chance to hit the water, wind-blown slop had turned the waves into angry lumps of danger. A sheet of grey cloud fretted over head. The siren sounded to start the heat and out we went. We found a lull in the sets and managed to edge past the Winkipop Express and towards the take-off as a smaller set rolled through. I saw the chance to get at least one wave under my feet before the wind made the waves chaotic, so I paddled onto a smaller foam-traced swell. I edged my board to the bottom of the wave, turned a few times then headed for the safety of the shoulder and sprint paddled back to the take-off spot. I sat on my board and drew a few deep breaths as Rick, one of the older surfers in the heat who I knew from Philip Island paddled over to me. He hauled himself up to his knees and held the rails of his board. He was starting to shiver. ‘I’ve got a confession to make Muzza.’ I looked at him blankly. Now seemed like a strange time to be making confessions about some past mischief after late nights in a pub on Phillip Island.
