Smorgasboarder_12_July-2012

ABOVE: Relaxing
at the resort. You’re
welcome to have a
few drinks here, but
not outside on the
islands.
RIGHT: Relaxing
on the boat... Life’s
looking pretty good.
Photos supplied by
Alyson
32 jul/aug 2012
“No… It was all good,” Alyson says
with a big smile. “There were only five
of us surfers on the boat and we were
all individuals. There were no groups, I
wasn’t on the outer and everyone was very
sociable. It was a perfect mix. I was the
only girl surfer, but there were two other
girls as part of the crew. They were stoked
as well to have a girl surfer on board.”
Before she left there were plenty of
warnings and much concern from family
and friends about this ‘going on a surf trip
with a bunch of blokes thing’, including
being handed a copy of Caught Inside
on DVD to prepare her for the worst. But
fortunately, due to the busy life as chef at
Marcoola Beach coffee shop, Bulli, and
spending all her spare time in the water
training for the trip, Alyson never got
around to seeing “The Bull” lose it and as
such, was just unbelievably excited about
a trip to paradise instead. (Not sure what
we mean? Watch Caught Inside - seriously
- and check out our interview with Ben
Oxenbould in the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of
smorgasboarder.)
The crew obviously saw the funny side of the
feature film though and made sure to pop the
movie into the DVD player on board.
“It was so frustrating, watching people not
taking their lives into their own hands!”
Alyson laughs… “We were shouting at the
screen “Just do something! Hit him!”
“Yes, there are bogan freaks among us,”
Alyson concedes, but was happy to report
that there were none on board with her.
And as it turns out, the surf conditions were
as friendly as the people on board.
“There are sections that are crazy shallow,
but it wasn’t dangerous. Even the casual
surfers had fun.
“We had two or three surfs a day, and I
must have got 30 or 40 waves a session.
I’m a bit of a groveller, so I just trawled
around to get everything I could.”
With 1,192 islands in a chain of 26 atolls
over 90,000 square kilometers there would
be plenty trawling choice in this Indian
Ocean wave paradise. The reefs that
provide the water funland are made up
of coral perched on top of a 960km long
undersea ridge that runs north to south off
the Indian Lakshadweep islands, South-
West of Sri Lanka and India.
Perfect waves in tropical water is a few
degrees up on the thermometer from how
it all started for Alyson though, growing
up in Victoria and enjoying her first surfing
experiences on the Mornington Peninsula.
“I probably started surfing at around 12,
but only once or twice a year,. Being in
Melbourne. It was so cold and I wasn’t very
good, but every year we came up to Noosa for
family holidays and stayed at the Sunshine
Beach caravan park, which was great.