International Ride for Peace Day

Made it back home on Wednesday morning without my Board Bag (a long story, but a good one for another time).  I think it's fair to say that I slept for the first couple of days just catching up and a hectic 2 months in Orlando.

The Annual 'Ride for Peace' Day was scheduled to be held at Sun Coast Cable at Bli Bli on Sunday September 19 and my good mate Damo Cox asked me to join a team with him.

So myself, Damo, Sam Byrne, Grant Young and Trent Hunt formed a 5 man team.   I rode pretty average all day just getting used to Aussie Cables again and getting back into Salt Water, but I really pulled it together for the final with an awesome run consistenting of s-bend to blinds, roll to blinds off the water Whirly 5's and shredding rails, which is one of the things I love the most about cable.
Our team came out with the win which was a pretty cool way to round out my first weekend back home.
I have a pretty hectic week ahead, I'm booked in for my boat and jet ski licence tomorrow and I head off on Friday for the Monster Energy Tige Tour.   I turn 16 at our first tour stop and hope to get a stopover somewhere next week so I can get my Learners Permit too.
Liquid Force have hooked me up with some 2011 gear for the Tige Tour (which they are also sponsoring)  so I have been busy stickering up the gear to show some love for the guys who make it happen for me.
It's going to be a good time on the road with Johnny 'Rubber' Henson and Nathan 'Tartoon' Green.  I'm really looking forward to reaching out some of the communities we visit have the collest people and some great wake talent.    The Tour means I missed a couple of Grass Roots Competitions, but that's cool - as long as I am getting my feet wet every day does it really matter?

Escape to Cocoa Beach Florida

With the World Championships done and dusted I had a couple of weeks to relax and chill a bit.

What's next?

I have been spending time with some of the Top US Junior Pros like Freddie Wayne and World Champ/US Pro Tour Champ Nick Galitifiore.   We were planning to rest a little, but we rode pretty much every day on boat, cable or hitting the rooftop off the Jet Ski.  Rode back at OWC and at McCormicks in Tampa.  

I went to a place called Busch Gardens with Nick which was just was awesome.The roller coasters were a lot bigger and better than any of the ones we have back home in Australia.   I got a laugh visiting the ‘Australian Culture Section’ with kangaroos and all of our wildlife roaming around.  It was fun to watch what people said, how they reacted and how they profile us.  I was wishing that Aussies and Kangaroos had some secret language or something so I could just jump the fence and do a Steve Irwin. ‘Have a look at this bloke, isn’t he a beauty’!

Cocoa Beach Florida

For the Labor Day Weekend, I was invited by Freddie Wayne and is family to head to Cocoa Beach for the long weekend.  Nice little road trip out past Cape Canaveral where the Space Shuttle is based and we got to one of the nicest beaches you can imagine.  Freddie and I were looking forward to letting off some steam by surfing, chasing girls and of course just soaking in the sun.  Lucky enough for us there was a surfing competition on the same beach where we were only a few miles from us.  Freddie & I woke up at the crack of dawn to beat all the tourists to the beach with our boards and had a really fun surf session for a few hours followed by a body surf for a while.  It was so nice to just chill in the salt water to remind me a little of home.  

Sunrise over Cocoa Beach

The salt water felt good on me after spending half of my life in America in fresh water lakes on the boat.  Once we were over the water we decided to put our boards in the back of the car and walk down to the pier where the comp was at, it was really cool with a huge crowd there just hanging out on the long weekend and enjoying the sun as much as we were. We got hit by a massive storm Sunday night so we decided to head home early so we could get prepared for an early morning set.

Back from Cocoa Beach , we waited for sunrise and the water was ready to be shredded so we packed up the car and cruised over to Nick Galotifiore’s house and spent a really fun day on the lake.  As happens a lot here, we got hit by an afternoon storm which kicked us off the water.  Rode again during the week and whent back to McCormicks Cable Park in Tampa with Terry Bailey who decided to join us.  , Its always fun heading to McCormicks because the cable runs clockwise which is always good to mix up our riding and encourages us to hit more switch air tricks and the rails there are amazing and the cable is very tight which is awesome for air tricks also.  Then once we were finished at the cable we decided to race home and hit another boat set before the sun went down for the night.   

I am really pumped about this weekend.  It’s the annual surf expo here in Orlando which all the major companies in wakeboarding attend.  The whole thing is just a meet and greet concept which is good for riders to get their foot in the door of a major company, it is also just good to be able to walk around and meet some of the key people that run the companies that drive wakeboarding to become a bigger and better sport.  Having the opportunity to network with these people for future connections comes in handy too.  My mentor and key sponsor Daniel Watkins is going to hang with me through the expo and ensure I make the right connections.  There is also lots of parties and awards nights that run at night like the Wakeboarding Magazine party and Parks Bonifay’s Double or Nothing presentation.  It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Between now and then, we have a few more rides scheduled.  I am really keen to make a little video clip of one of my sets, so that is a goal before the expo.