The photos have been sitting on my laptop for over 6 weeks now! This is the day in the Blue Mountains when I rolled my ankle for a second time and it was end of my surfing for a few months! Dan, Col, Dave and myself stayed up in Katoomba on the Friday night with the intention of starting our hike at sunrise. I dragged the guys out of bed to catch sunrise at the Blue Mountains! This is as far as I got actually as I rolled my ankle trying to get into position to take a sunrise photo  ooops!!! The lads continued on the hike for the day but after I rolled my ankle I left for Sydney and sat out on the beach, lol.

Just picked up a pretty sweet rode videomic for my camera! Shooting a video Wednesday. Should be fun.

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Well on the weekend I reinjured my ankle. I guess when it’s still in the process of healing it was always a risk! I was in process of some strengthening of the ligaments but a bit of tendon damage got in the way of us making much progress before I went over on the ankle again! So my aim now is to get back in the water for the Australian summer. Steve Felsher, my physio, reckons it’s achievable so to release some pressure on the ankle Steve did some acupunture on it. That was my first time getting acupunture, and I hate needles but ya it actually wasn’t too bad in the end!

I’ve a huge back log of photos from the last few months, the Queensland trip and the blue mountains trip. I’ve plenty to keep me busy…. Beautiful day outside today and some south swells rolling in over the weekend, so if you don’t have an injury get on it Ok I’m outta here…. CHEERS. C

Photos from Physio4All

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Rosherville lighthouse built in 1911. Used as a navigation beacon into and out of Sydney Harbour. Vessels moving between North and South heads line this lighthouse up with the smaller lighthouse on Grotto Point. Apparently the locals here saved this from the Government trying to pawn it off to developers to build yet more million dollar properties! Small victory. Pretty sweet look out and Colin O’Donnell and myself dropped by on my way to work this morning.

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Here are some surf shots I snapped when drifting around the beaches on the weekend! Some photos form Palm and Bungan!! Beautiful weather all weekend until a crazy storm hit manly. I happened to be in Manly at the time with my camera. In the space of 2 minutes the place was chaos! People running for shelter, chairs from restaurants being blown down the street! Pretty full on storm. The photos tell the story….. Surf is up in the morning so will go swimming! Have a good week. Cheers.

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Huge swell pushing through today and most of the beaches are closing out. Dee Why point is holding the huge south swell perfectly right now. The wind is up but offshore and about 4 people out! I was going to swim out but figured with the size of it I’d never get back on time for work…. lol. Oh to have the day off. Roll on the weekend. Cheers.

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I love to shoot in black and white and this shot is from Bilgola! Love’em.  Another beautiful morning this morning, a few foot rolling in from the south. I was thinking this morning that it would be great to get back over to Hawai’i for the Triple Crown of Surfing again this year. It’s been a couple of years now since I was there for it! Seriously tempting! I picked up this issue of Surfer magazine, it has the photos from the Eddie Aikau big wave event and I just wanted to get back over there!!! Reminded me that I have some nice photos from Waimea that I have never posted so I will drag those out and post them during the week!

I feel like shooting portraits today …. !!

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I was listening to the Irish news and heard about the crazy swim these guys were doing for the Temple street childrens hospital in Dublin. Fair play to them. If you want to see the challenge and sponsor these guys check it out at http://swimmingthechannelfortemplestreet.com/

So last weekend in Queensland (photos still to come) I did swim with my camera, but my ankle still felt weak and I still had a lot of tendon pain. I really could not wear a fin on my right foot! I’ve been working pretty intensely with my physio, Steve Felscher, to strengthen it up.

Well this weekend was my first swim with my camera wearing my fins and in some real surf. You have NO IDEA how good it felt to be back out there!!! I was definitely nervous swimming out because when you swim out with fins and your diving under the surf the fins do tend to really move around and twist your ankles in all sorts of directions! Steve did say if I feel any pain to call it a day but my ankle felt strong and it’s just amazing to be back out there! I still have a LONG way to go before I can really surf but it’s good to get involved.

Well it was great to welcome Paul O’Neill to the Sydney crew. Yet another Cork lad moves to Sydney. I think that makes a crew of 6 Irish lads. He managed to snag a few nice waves out there today. The feature photo is Ryan on a nice little left.

Well I know the blog has been really slow but I’ve been busy working on my ankle and also extremely busy at work. I will be posting the Queensland photos this week and those are pretty sweet.

IT IS GREAT TO BE BACK. Can’t wait to surf again.

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So it’s been a completely insane 4 days at work! I mean a good 4 days but definitely crazy busy so I’m only getting to add the photos from last weekend now!! What a classic surf trip with 5 Irish lads from home ( Cork, Ireland). Night one we stayed at Treachery and then continued on up the Forster! We had a right good laugh over the weekend! You can’t even plan some of the random things that happened!! Go figure!  A number of pods of dolphins, Whales, Pelicans and whatever else could have possibly shown up did! At one point I saw a big fin and a trailing tail fin heading for the lads surfing through my telephoto! I don’t think the Physio would have been too happy seeing me running down to warn the lads but I think it may have been a dolphin on its own! It definitely had me on edge considering the place was called Shark Alley! Stunning place. We stayed in a real nice cabin on the second night up at Forster, we were well impressed!Many drinks were had! We killed a few cases between us.

I actually managed to stay off my ankle all weekend (bar the sprint after my shark scare!! ) and I’m better for it! Steve, my Physio, has said I can swim (without fins) on the weekend so that’s GREAT with me heading off to Queensland in the morning!

There are over 3 pages of photos so hopefully you get a chance to glance through some of them.

Well I’ll post some photos from Queensland over the weekend! Off to bed, we’ve a 7:30am flight to the Sunshine coast!

CHEERS

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So myself and lads are off up the coast this evening. You’ll see from the Map we’re heading pretty far north! 4 hours to be exact. We’ve a house sorted a house for 6 at Treachery and we’ll be pretty close to tons of great surf spots! I obviously can’t surf with my injury but should be fun for the guys and I will shoot some photos form the beach and enjoy my Ukulele! A weekend out of the city will be class and I can’t wait. Bags are packed and Ryan is picking me up straight from work and we’ll be cruising up the Pacific Highway. Well I’ll post some photos Sunday night when I get back.

The surf is pumping at the moment in Sydney! 4ft and clean across the northern beaches! Get on it!!!

These photos were from pre injury up at Bilgola beach on the northern beaches. Beautiful place.

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Well week 1 of no surfing for me after Grade 2 ligament damage to my anterior talofibular ligament and strained medial collateral ligaments in my ankle! So I’m following the physio’s advice on this one and hoping to make a speedy and fast recovery and get back into the water soon! I’m hoping to get back into the water in two weeks just to swim (without fins) and then in 6 weeks I should be able to surf again! That’s the outlook anyways! It just means I’ve to be a little more inventive with my photos! I’ll be shooting the surf from the beach! I’ll be dusting off the 500mm .

Sleeping in was nice though! It’s actually a novelty for me these days. Surf is pumping right now so if you don’t have messeg up ligaments get on it!

This weekend myself and the lads are off to the seal rocks area, 4 hours north, I’ll be just taking some photos and playing my Ukulele!!! Should be nice all the same.

Cheers