Visitor #4 loved it so much he came back for more

Chris's cousin Joe was able to trick his company into another trip down under and we were very excited to show him another great weekend in Sydney.  Since we did all of the touristy stuff like boating in the harbor and wandering around the city the last time that he was here, this time Manly put on their first ASP World Tour Surfing Competition so that he'd have something to do.


Chris and Joe debating their odds in the competition

Although the waves were quite a bit smaller than ideal, the juniors surfing that kicked off the weekend was still extremely impressive and we were lucky enough to see one young grommet score a 9 on a wave.  Added to that, after weeks of relentless rain we also got extremely lucky with some sunshine and only an afternoon thunderstorm which we sat out from the safety of the pub. 

We followed up our pub stop with some more time on the beach, where we saw the girl who's arm was bit off by a shark paddle out and catch a wave without any hassle. If she can do it with one arm, why is it so hard for us to catch them with two??

Are they trying to push me off of the ledge?

The first evening was wrapped up with some beers on the rocks, a yummy steak at Honolulu and some live music back at Murray's.

Shockingly, Sunday morning also dawned bright and sunny so Chris and Joe set out to catch dinner.  Although I'd ordered several kingfish, the obligatory thunderstorm came through before they were able to deliver.

Around 6 pm the clouds had passed and the waves had cleaned up so we brought some beers down to the rocks to watch the surfers.  With the world tour event in town there are a ton of amazing surfers around and there were a lot of great things happening out there.

Once the mosquitos had about sucked us dry we walked back up to the apartment to a spectacular sunset.

Unfortunately Joe is off traveling around to more of Australia - but just remember, this is how nice the sun looks rising over the ocean in the morning...

 You are welcome back any time.