My last California sunset.

This is a pic of my last California sunset.

The time had come for me to leave SoCal and head back to Sydney.

Farewell ol' glory

thanks for having me

I loved the people, I loved the waves.

And so began the process of packing up and shipping the collection to its new (old) home.

First we had to take them all down from the racks, take out the fins, wrap them and try not to loose the screws.

Jake 'helped' me with the packing foam

My first mistake was to try to box them individually. The shipping company charges by the square foot and I was going to end up shipping a lot of air.

wrapping and packing

wrapping and packing

wrapping and packing

wrapping and packing

I tried many techniques but I fond the insulation foam tubes and cling wrap worked well.

noses, tails and rails

Then I got it together and packed 4 boards in a box, bound and wrapped together

I ended up with 10 four board boxes!

and I realized there would be a lot less damage if they were shipped on their sides in stead of getting the fins and noses crushed.

packing up the racks

pulling down the boards

time to say good bye to the Californian bungalow

and pack up the truck

careful boys

in they go

there no question that there are many folk and  things I miss from Cali, 

such as a hot fresh in'n'out burger.

but a burger and fries is really only a substitute for a meat pie with peas and gravy.

I'll miss trestles with Jordy and Bretty, which was firing the week I left

although I did get one good session in before I left

I'll miss right wing red necks

fresh donuts after a surf

and El Caminos, 

which of course is really a ute, a car truck, Australia's only gift to the motoring world

 a good burrito 

and Blue Bird, my 1973 Chevy pick up

but it was good to get home, back to the south coast and back amongst the trees

I opened up the shed and after three years and some heavy bush fire conditions all the boards were OK

the day I got off the plane was wet and stormy, so I headed straight down to the point

which hadn't changed a bit

on my first surf I cut my foot on a barnacle jumping off the rocks and got 4 sea urchin spines in the other foot coming in

all the boards all arrived in one piece,

and I realized it was good to be home.