Tsunami destroys Maninoa Samoan surf camp — Please help us rebuild

Coconuts, Samoa

Talofa Lava from Wayne Ryan founder of Maninoa Surf Fales in Samoa.

By now most of the world would be aware of the tragedy that recently hit the beautiful and peaceful pacific islands of Samoa .

It was another awesome sunny and warm Samoan day at Maninoa Surf fales on Tuesday the 29^th of September 2009. Tim Southall was up early around 6am to wake the guest for there morning surf. It just seemed like any other day at Maninoa Surf camp which is situated on the south shore of the main island of Samoa.

The south coast of Samoa offers some of the best beaches , surf , and resorts in the Pacific including Maninoa which I founded some 15 years ago. Over the over these years Maninoa has been a surf mecca for many traveling surfers and holiday makes from all around the world. Far gone are the early days where a dream of basic huts on the beach with a surf service to guide the handful of surfing nomads around our new found Paradise in search of perfect waves.

Over the last 15 years many surfers have come and gone, many returning to Maninoa not just for the waves but to visit what many say “there Samoa family” like many of the resorts along this coast Maninoa has given  the sleepy unknown villages, education , employment and great hope for the future.

At Maninoa we are proud to have given back in many ways while keeping with there strong Samoan cultural systems and values. We have worked with not only the villageof Maninoa ,but also local churches and government .

Tuesday the 29^th of September 2009 was to be a day which will go down in Samoan and world history as day which we could only wished never happened.

By 6.30 most of the surfers where out surfing one of the outer reefs by boat, many other guests still a sleep or only just waking. Our staff setting up of breakfast and the village starting its day getting ready for school , work and the day ahead. At this stage a earth quake being a massive 8.3  on the richter scale took place only about 140 km away out to sea.

The Tsunami warning sounded out though the resorts and village which thank God gave us aprox 8 minutes to get all the guests , staff and family out to safety. We can only thank God that our staff did this with only seconds to spare before the night mere of a 4 metre tsunami surge hit the land crushing almost every thing in its path.

We also thank God that Tim and all the surfers where out surfing and all returned safe. One of the surfers there said that he had just caught one of the best wave of his only to flick of the wave to hear the screams of Tim telling him to paddle for the channel and next the horizon . They got sucked out to sea with the ocean turning into a forest of coral heads as the water drained off the reef.

It was Wednesday morning in Sydney Australia when I wake very early around 6am after believe it or not dreaming that night of an earth quake and being rolled by a large wave while in a car???

My wife Donna informed me that the 6am news said there was and earthquake in Samoa.

Not overly worried as we have had many tremors and quakes over the years in Samoa , decided to phone the camp. No response??? I then phoned my partners mobile phone only to be informed the total devisation and the fact that a tsunami had destroyed the 5 star resort next door called Coconuts and the other resort next door called Sinalei.

In the confusion I was informed that all our guests , staff and family where safe. I thanked God as tears of mixed emotions ran down my face . Then the sad news the our dear friend Mrs Annandale the owner of Sinalei Reef Resort had drowned saving some children. My family and I cuddled and prayed for the situation that was unfolding.  I was so blessed to have got through as not long after my call the phone lines to Samoa where blocked as loved ones tried to find out if there families and friends had survived.

I headed straight to the Dee Why office to inform families and friends of staff, guests and others the good news that all where safe . Throught out the day the phones rang off the hook with concerns , prayers and the offers of support to Maninoa , myself, Tim , and the locals that many that many guests had got to know during there visits to Samoa.

To all that did phone or email with prayers, concerns and the willingness to help let me on behalf of my partner Paster and Masui Lenne and his wife Araisa , his family ,Tim and all our staff including Wainer, Polsala and his family, all the LINE UP STAFF and the village of Maninoa we would like to inform you that we are so so humbled by you all, you gave us great strengh. Every one who did contact us I will make sure that your messages are pasted on to them . And as promised here are some of the ways that you can help us .

It is our united plan to rebuild Maninoa .As you can see from the photos we lost over 80% of our buildings , fales, dinning rooms , etc.

We praise God that our office on the hill is still ok and that our new block which has dinning, office and 10 rooms will be re opening this Monday for business.

Up until now its been accommodation for clean up workers and local Samoans who have lost there homes.

We are committed to pay all our staff wages even if they are working away form Maninoa with there own villages, or mourning the loss of Friends or family in other parts of the Island.

More than 160 people died  in the Samoan tsunami.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Many people want to now how can they help? Here is a list of ways that you can:

It has been estimated that over A$150,000 is needed to rebuild .

It will cost an other A$50 aprox of fittings ,bedding and dinning and kitchen ware etc, this will give back jobs and give hope back to hundreds of locals through the tourists trade.

1.   PLEASE DONATE.  We have set up a bank account where any one can send money  the account details are as follow.

Thanks for the many who offered to give. Donations can be made by internet banking or by going into any Nab bank and making a deposit.

National Australia Bank

LINE UP SURF SAMOA

BSB Number.   082183

Account Number. 591641781

For those who asked we can take credits cards over the phone on 61 2 9971 8624.

2.    Helping re-build.

Many people have offered to come to Samoa to re build. It has been agreed at this stage by Masui Lenne that this takes place in about a month.

We are hoping to co ordinate a container from Australia with needs such as building materials , bedding , clothing furniture office needs etc. o The Samoan government has offered to drop all duties so that we can get needs in. We hope to not only cover many of our needs but many for the local villages.

3.    Holidays to Samoa with a purpose .

This idea is to bring teams of people who want to come stay with us for a paid holiday with a view to bring stuff like there trade skills and supplies eg tools ect and help re build Maninoa and or other local villages or projects. I will be heading up these. We are planning one for the end of Oct 09 and 15^th November 09 . You can still surf and have fun if you want or you can work doing projects to see this place get back to normal.

Please let LINE UP SURF  know if you might be keen a 10 night package will be around  A$1600 which will include airfares accommodation and meals. Further stays can be arranged.

4.     FUND RAISING: We have heard that many surf clubs and Christian surfer groups are keen to do fund raising. This is great and we truly welcome this. If you could inform us of any projects we would be very greatful.

5.     Please keep coming to Samoa, this is one of the best ways to help. Please don’t stop coming. whether you stay with us or not.

6.     And of course please keep the prayers and good wishes for Samoa and its people coming. I hope that I have helped you with this email as long as it might be, to be honest its been every hard to type this . Its now 12.30 am and I feel a relief for doing it.

Thanks and GOD bless you all.

WAYNE RYAN

PS. PLEASE FIND BELOW AN EMAIL FROM OUR SURF GUIDE  TIM SOUTHALL WHO I KNOW ALSO HAS OVER COME THE PAIN AND EMOTIONS OF THIS TIME TO WRITE.

____________________________________________________________

Dear Friends and family.

We now have a computer up and running here which is fabulous in our make shift office. Hopefully there are a handful of photos attached to this letter for you all to get a bit of a perspective of the carnage. The photos of bare ground are where all the fales used to be. Today we spent the entire day cleaning the beach which is now looking a fair bit better. Lots of volunteers came down to help which was a great asset. Some families and certain churches drove around today dropping off water and biscuits and things. That stuff just really warms the heart. We have been eating bread and tinned beef, or rice and canned mackerel for dinner at night so to get some bonus extra stuff to stimulate the taste buds is a real blessing.  Lot’s of fires today as we started burning all the wood that cannot be recycled and the copious amounts of rubbish lying around.

A detective came down today to ask us if we were missing any guests. He had a three-page printout in his hand of all the dead and missing. 129 officially dead and more missing. A few bodies of tourists have been found but with no identity, hence the detectives visit. All our guests are accounted for though as I saw them all with my very own eyes.

Nothing more of my stuff has been found and I am not holding my breath for anything more popping us as we have turned over pretty much everything now. Everyone here is in pretty good spirits which is great. I’m not sure how it is down the other end of the island where the loss of life has been much greater. In my village, the people work by the sea in the resorts but they all live up the hill a bit. So most people working by the sea are young adults with good common sense and fast legs to escape with. At the south east end of the island however the people live right by the sea and the death toll there is much higher; primarily women, young children, and very old people.

People wanting to donate to those suffering from the carnage, non specific donations, would be best to donate straight to the Samoan Red Cross. These guys have been at the center of all the aid work and a huge amount of volunteers have rallied behind them. Truck load upon truck loads of clothes have been donated already along with impressive money donations. This has been a real joy to watch as this financially povo country has given with great generosity. Bigger businesses have given big cash, relatively poor families have donated their spare clothes and tarpaulins, 6 year old girls have smashed open their piggy banks and donated the coins. Brilliant to see. I don’t know the contact details for the Red Cross here but I am sure you could track them down easily enough. Just contact the Red cross in your own country and take it from there.

For those who’ve asked about the damage to our business specifically, hopefully the photos will tell the story but I’ve also tried to put a rough estimate of what our structures were worth before the tsunami. We had seven beach fales that cost $6,000 tala each to build (divide by 2 for Ozzie dollars), three units at $14,000 each. Toilets and showers at $10,000. Washing machine and laundry at $3,000, boats and boating equipment at about $18,000. So that’s about $115,000 tala excluding the kitchen and restaurant (I honestly have no idea as to how much tables, chairs, stoves, plates, cutlery etc costs), lost food stock, sheets, pillows, mattresses etc. Bummer. For those wanting to donate straight to Maninoa surf camp – my boss would be most grateful for any donations, the bank details are:

Maninoa Beach Surf

Acc no: 3021 201

BSB no: 010979

Swift Code: ANZ BWSWW

For those living in Australia who want to make a donation to the surf camp, Wayne, our booking agent in Sydney is setting up a charity account for us. The purpose is to avoid the bank fees of many small transactions and because we’ve heard that there is now free cargo from Oz to Samoa for a short time if its aid related. The plan is to buy a heap of stuff in Oz and then throw it on a palate and ship it all over in one go. If that’s of interest to you, then please give Wayne in Sydney a ring on (02) 9971 8624.

For those wanting to donate to me personally, my bank details for those in Oz is (its an Australian account that has minimal fees for overseas transactions) are:

Account no: 0035487240

BSB:105 055

For those transferring from overseas, the full details are:

Swift code: SGBLAU2S (they only need this or the iban code).  The Swift code / iban code is a means of other countries paying into bank accounts held in overseas countries.

The bank address is 26 Murray Street, Nuriootpa  SA 5355  Australia  Phone: 08 8560 9000

The account name is: Timothy James Southall.  BSB: 105 055  Account number 0035487240

That’s probably a lot more than necessary but you never know.

Ive never owned much and I don’t need much but there are a couple things that are a great blessing to my life. One is an acustic guitar, secondly some books and study material, thirdly a motorbike, and fourthly my surfboards. Hopefully I will find out within a couple days if my bike is a write-off as my boss drops my bike off in to town in his truck. The bike was very nearing the end of its life anyway but still got me from A to B. I have a friend in NZ who’s church is the unofficial distributers for “Koinonia house” ministries. If these guys are willing, I will get all my study stuff through them and they can send me a box when I get them some money. I lost four decent surfboards in the Tsunami (I break up to 8 a year), so need to make arrangements there pretty soon. For an acoustic guitar I like steel string with no pickup.

For those who would like to come over and help, I recommend waiting a bit until rebuilding begins. We need to get organized here and make sure we can coordinate the arrival of building supplies etc with the arrival of those coming to help build.  Before coming over, a great idea is to buy some cheap tools from the hardware store that can be used while here and then leave behind the tools when you go. That’s a very cheap and practical way to help out. Give me an idea of your planned arrival date, I’ll ask the boss if that looks good and we’ll go from there. There are still waves here also, its still a good holiday destination.

That’s about all I can think of to write at the moment. We here have all been humbled by the amount of calls and emails we have received with people wanting to know that we are OK and asking if we need help at all.

Tim

MUNDAKA – Round 1 First Results – Layday today

Billabong Pro Mundaka - sadly too small today.

MUNDAKA, Euskadi (Tuesday, October 6, 2009) – A lay day has been called for the Billabong Pro Mundaka, with only small one-to-two foot (0.5 metre) waves and high tide conditions on offer this morning.

Event No. 8 of 10 on the 2009 ASP World Tour, the Billabong Pro Mundaka commenced competition yesterday at the primary venue, running the first eight heats of the man-on-man elimination Round 1.

“The surf we enjoyed yesterday has dropped substantially since then and we’ve called competition off for the day,” Mike Parsons, Billabong Pro Mundaka Contest Director, said. “We’re tracking some models for the end of the week that look promising, but we’ll be back tomorrow to make another call.”

Event organizers will reconvene tomorrow morning at 9am to assess conditions for a possible recommencement.

When competition resumes, up first will be ASP Dream Tour veteran Dean Morrison (AUS), 28, up against event wildcard Dean Bowen (AUS) in Heat 9 of Round 1.

Highlights from yesterday’s Billabong Pro Mundaka will be available via http://www.billabongpro.com/mundaka09/

The Billabong Pro Mundaka will host the world’s best surfers from October 5 through 17, 2009.

For more information, log onto www.aspworldtour.com

BILLABONG PRO MUNDAKA ROUND 1 RESULTS:

Heat 1: Jihad Khodr (BRA) 13.60 def. Roy Powers (HAW) 11.10

Heat 2: David Weare (ZAF) 13.50 def. Tim Boal (FRA) 7.17

Heat 3: Drew Courtney (AUS) 11.67 def. Heitor Alves (BRA) 10.17

Heat 4: Tiago Pires (PRT) 14.66 def. Phillip MacDonald (AUS) 13.17

Heat 5: Ben Dunn (AUS) 13.16 def. Marlon Lipke (DEU) 9.10

Heat 6: Kekoa Bacalso (HAW) 15.80 def. Hodei Collazo (EUK) 10.96

Heat 7: Michel Bourez (PYF) 13.34 def. Damien Fahrenfort (ZAF) 10.00

Heat 8: Kai Otton (AUS) 13.84 def. Reubyn Ash (GBR) 11.50

REMMAINING BILLABONG PRO MUNDAKA ROUND 1 MATCH-UPS:

Heat 9: Dean Morrison (AUS) vs. Dean Bowen (AUS)

Heat 10: Mick Campbell (AUS) vs. Marcos San Segundo (EUK)

Heat 11: Chris Davidson (AUS) vs. Nathaniel Curran (USA)

Heat 12: Tim Reyes (USA) vs. Michael Picon (FRA)

Heat 13: Josh Kerr (AUS) vs. Nic Muscroft (AUS)

Heat 14: Dustin Barca (HAW) vs. Aritz Aranburu (EUK)

Heat 15: Chris Ward (USA) vs. Dayyan Neve (AUS)

Heat 16: Jay Thompson (AUS) vs. Greg Emslie (ZAF)

BILLABONG PRO MUNDAKA ROUND 2 MATCH-UPS:

Heat 1: C.J. Hobgood (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 2: Dane Reynolds (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 3: Jordy Smith (ZAF) vs. TBA

Heat 4: Bede Durbidge (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 5: Bobby Martinez (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 6: Damien Hobgood (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 7: Adrian Buchan (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 8: Joel Parkinson (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 9: Mick Fanning (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 10: Fredrick Patacchia (HAW) vs. TBA

Heat 11: Adriano de Souza (BRA) vs. TBA

Heat 12: Taylor Knox (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 13: Kelly Slater (USA) vs. TBA

Heat 14: Tom Whitaker (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 15: Taj Burrow (AUS) vs. TBA

Heat 16: Kieren Perrow (AUS) vs. TBA

It may be your only chance for a while.

Small, around 2 feet, but glass like in the morning with NW winds shifting to SW in the afternoon. Low tide is after 3:30 pm so if the winds stay light, you may catch a ride as oppose to the morning which has a higher than normal tide.

Roberto

Dee Why: Not flat, but not far off.

Cool and sunny morning

A set tries to get the point going, but doesn't quite succeed.

0730 empty one at Dee Why

Warning Summary at issue time:
Gale Warning between Gabo Island and Broken Bay. Strong wind warning between Broken Bay and Smoky Cape. Strong Wind warning for Sydney Closed waters.

Hello Friends,

Looking pretty small at Dee Why this morning. Swell is currently out of the south at around the 1.5-2 metre mark, but the power setting is only about 7 seconds, so it’s likely to be a struggle to find much in the way of juice.

From the buoy data it appears that this is the case all up and down the east coast at the moment. And it looks likely to stay that way for Tuesday.

But tomorrow it all changes as Huey sends in the winds big time and on the way through boosts the swell considerably.

Gotta jam! Catchya later.

Synoptic Situation
A high over the Bight is moving east, bringing southwest to southeast winds along the New South Wales coast today. These are expected to be become strong to gale force on Wednesday and Thursday as a low develops and deepens to the east of Bass Strait on Wednesday, moving slowly eastwards on Thursday and Friday.
Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Gale warning
Tuesday until midnight: Wind: S’ly change 15/20 early, easing to S/SE 10/15 knots during the morning and S/SE 5/10 knots in the afternoon and evening. Sea: 1.5 to 2.5 metres gradually abating to below about 1 metre in the evening.Swell: SE about 1.5 metres.
Wednesday: Wind: W/SW 18/23 knots, ahead of a S/SW change 25/35 knots in the morning, reaching 35/40 knots and possibly 45 knots offshore, in the afternoon or evening.Sea: Increasing ti 2.5 to 3.5 metres during the morning and to 4 to 5 metres in the afternoon or evening.Swell: S/SE 1.5 to 2.5 metres. Thunderstorms
Thursday: Wind: S’ly 30/40 knots.

Around 2 feet and full- look for improvement later

It’s 2 feet and full but the wind is forecast to go offshore later and hopefully just in time for a drop in tide.  Some nice waves late yesterday! Solid south swell forecast for tomorrow coupled with offshores so let’s hope it’s not a fizzer like last weeks effort.  Enjoy.

C C

Fine, dry and cool on the Central Coast this Tuesday morning.  The swell smooth and small at 1 – 2 feet from the east southeast.  There is a light to moderate west southwest breeze forecast to go southeast later.  High tide 0905 and low tide around 1530.  Local barometer 1012 hpa, 12 degrees C. 95% humidity.   Have a good one.

Manic Monday in Byron Bay today.

Manic Monday In Byron Bay Today. It was a glorious day in the bay today, the sun was shining the waves were clean and the crowd was smaller than expected. So why the hell was it so hard to get a wave today? Every local surfer I spoke to today complained of being severely hassled in the water today, and to make it more difficult to handle, hassled by people with little to no surfing ability. I’m curious where did beginner surfers get the idea it’s cool to paddle out somewhere you’re visiting and try to take over like you own the place, is there website out there, that teaches Gumby’s how to hassle? I don’t know maybe people felt that they may never get another Monday off. Whatever it is guys, remember it’s not a competition out there, show a little respect in the water for your fellow surfers, visitors and locals alike. Or go somewhere else, because the local crew were not amused. It’s most uncool to manically paddle around the place and try to claim every wave. Remember people we’re in the water to surf, relax, chill out and take it easy, it’s about some time spent in the realm of Huey. It’s not about stroking your fragile liuttle egos, In Byron Bay Today.

Well there ya go, that feels much better, that’s my whinge for a while.