Joli heads west, taps Margaret River vibe

Makua Rothman, Joel Parkinson & Taj Burrow © joliphotos.com

Joli's Blog

Joli View my "Drug Aware Margaret River Pro 2013" images

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 16 March, 2013 : - - G’day from Western Australia, After a mad dash across the breadth of Australia, the pro tour has now plunged itself into the Indian Ocean. The Drug Aware Margaret River Pro kicked off today in the south west corner of Western Australia with a solid ground swell providing two metre plus surf.

The event features the inaugural women’s World Championship Tour event while the men are surfing in the last Prime event as next year their division will be upgraded to a WCT event as well. Local surfer, and yesterday’s Trials event winner, Felicity Palmateer caused the upset of the day in the women’s rounds by forcing reigning world champ Stephanie Gilmore into sudden death round two heats.

In the men’s heats, the number one seed Joel Parkinson was knocked out of the contest after having an interference call go against him in the last heat of the day. Former winner Damien Hobgood also suffered the same fate when a double interference was called on him earlier in the day.

The swell is supposed to kick in later in the week and there is a real buzz around the site as organizers have the ability to move the contest to The Box, a right hand slab of a wave that breaks over a shallow reef just north of the main break. If the move goes ahead stand by for some awesome barrel riding and some spectacular action.

The swell is supposed to stay around the same size tomorrow so there will be plenty more action out at the main ‘Margs’ break. I’ll continue to upload images as the action goes down.

Drug Aware Pro Margaret River - Images by Peter 'Joli' Wilson