Bronte Beach Bodysurfing Winter Womp Recap : Daniel Carr

On Saturday June 20th, as we celebrated summer and International Surfing Day in America, womping winter solstice celebrations were making a splash in Australia.

Bronte Body surfing competition wrap up

Native Aussie and Slyde Team Ryder Daniel Carr @captain_kookman joined the friendly bodysurfing competition. A charity event for “Real Swim Indonesia Project,” which in August will teach REAL swimming to Balinese kids for free.

Here’s a recap directly from the Captain Kookman:
"It was a fun day, minus the 5am start to travel down the coast to get there so a pretty long day.

"it was pretty heavy and once you are on a wave after the initial sucky take off it hits another crop of rocks and sucks up again, on the lower tide there were fully exposed"

About 40 body surfers in heats of 6 for 25min heats, no scoring just bodysurfing. There was some swell about and a nice rip on the northern end of the beach which saw a competitor get sucked out and around the point in the first heat and needed rescuing off the rocks. I have never surfed Brontebefore but the beach is probably only a out 300m wide tucked into two rocky/cliff headlands. The south break was on a shallow slabbing reef, it was pretty heavy and once you are on a wave after the initial sucky take off it hits another crop of rocks and sucks up again, on the lower tide there were fully exposed so you had to keeps your eyes open.

The Conditions

During my heat I went out in the middle and after taking a right nearly ended up on the same course as the competitor which ended up on the rocks, a nice swim against the current to get back out the back and to cleaner water. Waves were a bit messy and fuller in the middle and northern end so after my heat hit the southern reef for some thrills and spills with the masses.

Managed to bounce off the rocks only once and was a long wait between waves as board riders ruled the break, watch an older local rule on the womp only to have boardriders go the snake on him on some close calls, he was charging in speedos, fins and a swimming cap in the middle of winter whilst I was comfy in my steamer.

Organized chaos

Overall, was a great day of organized chaos for a good cause. In the club house there were a few stalls with the regular crews, Russel from Dafin and then Garage Handplanes plus official sponsors Deus. Plus Don McCredie from DMC, the girls from Surf Planks (wooden Handboards, belly boards and Alai) and Pete from Glissando handplanes. The had giveaways/lucky door prizes for fins, boards etc etc and guys filming the day from the water, land and airs will keep on the lookout for that." 

If you have a bodysurf event & story you’d like us to share please email michelle@slydehandboards.com