Every 12 months or so my golfing friends and I head to a fancy golf course for the Blue Jacket Masters. Previous winners have been Adrian, Jon (The Dunes), Adrian again, then Matt. I can’t remember the courses that Adrian and Matt won on. Maybe they’re reading this and will record their past glories in the comments.
Anyway, this year we were on the 13th Beach beach course (not a typo, it’s called the beach course), which is a tough layout and is rated the 17th best course in Australia. Here’s one of the holes. Scary when there’s a four club breeze blowing across from the sea.
We had yet another great day and this year John triumphed – his 36 stableford points off a handicap of 27 just beating me on 34 (off 20). Nice one John! Here he is in front of the 13th clubhouse, proudly wearing the Blue Jacket.
P.S. That’s a cameraphone pic. Takes a nice shot, does the new phone.
Been a good weekend so far. Up early for a surf on Saturday, a lazy breakfast with Kate, Bec, Damian and John in Barwon Heads, home to hitch the boat up for a wake session in the afternoon, back home again for a BBQ (in the rain!), some Texas Hold ‘Em, up early-ish again today for another surf, home for pancakes, then a solid afternoon’s gardening. I’m surfing again in the morning (4-5ft offshores, which should be good) and then we’re heading to Sim and Bek’s in the afternoon for Mexicana night. Phew!
The wake session wasn’t great (lots of chop) but all the Skandia Geelong Week boats were out so we joined the flotilla and watched the monster yachts as they approached Geelong instead. We had to stay out of their way though – they were moving pretty quickly ‘cos they had their main sails up. It was an amazing sight and great to be out there less than 50m away rather than watching them from the shore!
Our friends James and Lou have a new puppy, Ellie, and this morning they brought her down to the beach for the first time. It was also the first time she’d met another dog (i.e. Max). She looked like she was having a ball – not afraid of the water (but a bit wary of the moving waves), sniffing and playing with the seaweed, running around with Max and so on. It even seemed as though she was copying him when she was on the lead by walking along properly. Not bad for an 11-week-old!
When I was 16 I tried to chew a Murray Mint. Not to see what would happen, mind you, I think I was just in a hurry. If you’re familiar with Murray Mints (and if you’re not, look them up), you’ll know that chomping on them is not a good idea. I soon found that out. I lost one of the points from my mandibular first molar (left).
Nearly 20 years later, the point is still missing (not that I thought it would grow back or anything) but the rest of the tooth is still there. It doesn’t hurt and I’ve never had anything done to it. I tend to chew on the right side of my mouth, though.
Yesterday evening, whilst chewing on a nice tender piece of eye fillet, I lost a point from the equivalent molar on the right side of my mouth. Surprised me a bit, to be honest, as it came out of nowhere, and eye fillet steak is considerably less crunchy than a Murray Mint.
The tooth doesn’t hurt, and I can still chew (lightly), but by crikey it’s sharp. My poor tongue is getting sliced to pieces in there. I can’t swallow food properly because my tongue moves against the sharp bit. Try it.
I must be getting old. I guess I’ll have to head to a dentist at some point to fix things up. Hmmmmm…
This morning we woke up at 7.30, which is early for a non-surfing Sunday, and went for a walk along the Surf Coast Walk between Bells and Point Addis. The path runs for about 30km from Jan Juc to Airey’s Inlet – we’ve walked sections of it before but hadn’t done this one.
The surf was pretty flat so there only a few desperados out on their longboards but the calm ocean was still great to look at – it was as blue as can be when the sun came out.
We were walking for just over an hour, so we’ll call it 5kms return. Just tried to find a map online but couldn’t so I made my own.
I’ve been slack with the jayneandmarty.com posts over the last few weeks. No excuse other than I was on holidays and didn’t really feel like sitting in front of the computer. But I’m back now, so here’s a round up of what we’ve been up to.
Wakeboarding day trip to Eildon, 29 Dec 07
On Sat 29th Jayne, me, Jon B and Iao went to Eildon for a day’s wakeboarding. Jayne and I left Geelong at 6.30am with Georgia and Lindsay, who had stayed an extra night with us. Paul and Catherine (and Nicki) were at Eildon for the day too, so the plan was to drive the girls up there and hand them back to their owners before meeting up with Jon and Iao and heading for the water. The drive up took us just under 3 hours (we went the Princes Freeway/Ring Road/Hume Freeway/Seymour/Yea/Alexandra route, which was smooth and easy) and after a bit of stuffing around at the Eildon shops and a wait at the busy Jerusalem Creek boat ramp we were on the water by 11am.
The lake’s at about 23%, which is around 20m below full, but there’s still plenty of water there. We tooled out of the Jerusalem Creek inlet at the obligatory 5 knots and headed right towards the Big River arm looking for some flat water. There were heaps of boats out on the water (understandable, as it was at least 35 degrees, Christmas week and a Saturday) but we managed to find a reasonably sheltered bay and shared it with only three or four other boats, one of which was a Pride Cheetah like ours called Herbie.
On Jon’s second run he had a big stack and ripped his boardies up the side. The rip got progressively worse as the day went on and by 3pm we were keeping an eye out for the water cops in case they busted him for indecent exposure. You can see the rip in the photo just before the “I’m the King of the World” one in the slideshow. At about 3pm we met up with Paul and Catherine. I had a go on their biscuit behind Nicki’s boat and Lindsay had a board behind our boat (video below). We finally pulled the boat out at about 4.30, all of us stuffed. After a quick feed from the Eildon bakery we cruised home, arriving just before 9pm.
It was a big day, and I’d do it like that again, but even better would be staying up there for the night. It was a bit like driving to the snow for the day – by 5pm all you want to do is relax in the pub and talk about the day over a beer or two. The last thing on your mind is driving home.
Picasa slideshow
Lindsay’s wakeboarding video
Golf with Peter and Christine
On Jan 2 Peter and I went for a hit of golf at Queenscliff, and Christine came too to drive the cart. Apparently she’d never been to a golf course before, let alone driven a cart, so it’s no wonder that she was VERY cautious on the throttle for the first three holes. By the fourth, though, she’d got the hang of it and was tearing around like a veteran with a big smile on her face (witness Peter holding on for dear life in the last two pics).
More wakeboarding
On Saturday we went for another board, this time on Corio Bay with Iao, Jed and Gita. The wind was up a bit but we zoomed over to the northern part of the bay to look for shelter and managed to find some reasonably flat water. Jayne won’t go in the bay (sharks) and Gita was just along for the ride but Iao, Jed and I all had a crack. It was Jed’s first time and he (a) managed to get out of the water first go, and (b) looked very comfortable on both edges. He was all smiles whenever he pulled off a decent carve.
Unfortunately I hurt myself on my second run – I caught the front edge, overstretched and then faceplanted. Before my face had even hit the water I knew I’d ripped one of the muscles in my abdomen but I also must have smacked my head around a bit because for the rest of the day and through Sunday I was nauseous and dizzy. This morning I went to the doctor and she confirmed a muscle tear and some ear trauma. Nothing too serious though so I’ll be at work tomorrow.
All in all it was a great couple of weeks off. Having Greg and Donna with us meant that the house was full and busy most of the time (sometimes a bit too busy!) but we all managed to find our own space.
Jayne and I spent plenty of time with each other at the beach, on the boat, with friends and family and just enjoying the hot weather … summer’s great!
