Jan Juc – Rockin the surf with aloha

Jan Juc carpark with a bunch of ideal cars to throw boards into

Jan Juc is my new favourite place to surf. Perhaps it’s because I was shown where the local café is where there seems to be a plethora of 30+ surfer types hanging out (sausage forest, anyone?). Or perhaps it’s because last weekend Melbourne pretended it was summer again and it hit the high 20s. Or maybe since being dolphinised by Kelly Slater I am surfing with aloha and feeling awesome. Generally though, I gotta say…

Life. Is. Great.

Gerry Lopez says, 'Surf with aloha and live with aloha and all will be good'

I hit the surf both days this weekend – 6 hours of driving for about 3.5 hours of surfing. But the car trips were heaps of fun singing along to mix CDs my sister made me for my birthday. Doodlebum and I hadn’t hit the coast by ourselves in ages and it was fun to sing our arses off in the car and feel froffy about the waves. After an incredibly drunken yet creatively inspiring Friday night I was in need of a medicinal sausage roll and caffeine hit on Saturday morning and when we first paddled out the back, the rolling of the swell made me feel more than a touch nauseous but I pushed on through. I have heard of hangovers so bad that vomiting while surfing has happened. Gross. This was not going to happen to me. Miraculously in my mentally diminished state and with a slight case of hysteria I managed to catch some great waves that made me smile and victoriously ‘woohoo!’ and air punch. The best hangover cure.

Yep. That's our spot.

Jan Juc is a long beach with a few different spots to surf so even though there can be probably about 60 people in the surf you still feel like you can grab a wave. The 29 degree day on Sunday brought out the crowds and the kneeboarders (why do they not want to stand up?? Whyyyyy?!) and with them some old salties as well.

Nothing like a bit of leopard print under a wetsuit to make a girl feel snazzy

Now that I’m bursting out of my wetsuit with aloha and not froffin’ as madly, I realise I can learn a lot by watching other surfers. Particularly the old salties with style. We saw one guy pull out an Endless Summer move of arms thrust forward like a superhero rocknroller, his rounded belly making him look like a cuddly neoprene teddy bear. Radical.

The longboarder. My hero

We visited Winkipop to watch them delicately pick their way through the rocks, board clutched under their arms before paddling like demons inbetween sets to the back. The only longboarder with the coolest board ever was my hero. Out of place on his boat among all the hyperactive shortboarders, he was doing long deep turns and cruising through the sea of surfers like a semi-trailer on a highway. D-bum and I were knocking back a post-surf beer (aka froffer) watching them, marvelling that you don’t even see these surfers pop up, admiring their style, their grace and their boards and placing bets on when we’ll be surfing Winki too. If we keep this aloha biz up it might be sooner (well, a year maybe??) than we think.

Sunset on the way home to Melbs