Your correspondent wandered down to the final afternoon of the Manly Festival of Surfing to catch the celebrity challenge. The weather was not kind and Huey was in one of his moods. Of course the pros are used to making the best of marginal conditions and despite the unobliging weather, there were a fair few folk on hand to watch.

As usual it was a revelation to watch just how much speed these folks were able to extract from the utterly gutless junk. Tom Carroll was particularly impressive. No matter how weak the wave, he somehow managed to steadily build up his speed so he was in a position to do something if the wave so much as offered a foot of clean face. Damien Hardman and Layne weren’t more than a few tenths of a percent behind in this department. Occy showed that he still has it as well, but the waves in his heat were few and far between, so we only got one or two flashes from the master.

That said, he still has the kind of 1000 watt personality that pulls the crowds. At the same time he seemed to genuinely get a kick out of the groms who shyly edged up to request an autograph.

Anyway, here are a few snaps…

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