Coronation Xmas

The culmination of my year is the annual camping trip to Coronation Beach. Coronation is my local windsurfing spot, and is only a mere 15km north up the beach from where I live, but it feels like a million miles away.

The world comes to us over summer, as Geraldton, and Coronation Beach in particular, is a fixture in the lives of many international wind and kite surfers, who travel here every year for our consistent wind and waves. Visitors who don't know, when they venture down the hill to see up to a hundred sailors out on the water often ask if there's a competition on. No, we explain, just a lot of people having fun. And us locals like to enjoy our time up here at the beach as well.

I brought the camper up 2 weeks ago, and initially I commuted to work daily, returning for an evening sail, but for ten days over Xmas and New Year I get to camp up here full-time and go sailing all day. It's a great time to just chill out with mates, spend lazy hours swimming, sailing and drinking copious cups of tea. Communal Xmas dinner, washed down with cold beer and a few glasses of red, after a day of wind and waves is what it's all about.

The solar setup is working fantastically, in fact there is little need to rotate the panels to the sun as there are so many hours of sunlight here that my battery stays topped up easily. Lights, fridge, shower and computer, with no concerns whatsoever. I've had all the men, and some of the women, come over to check out my handiwork, and leave suitably impressed, some even requesting advice.

The most fun we've had so far this holiday is filming with our Gopro video cameras. Kate has two cameras and I have one, so we have been having a whale of a time chasing each other around on the water trying to get the money shot. I've managed some nice aerials and wave riding footage and with Nicky on the kite filming with the third camera we are hoping to put together a fun little film. Stay tuned!

The Bradley kids arrived last night, and will stay a few days, though I had to ring home this morning to order more food, snorkelling gear, boogie boards, and Carter's toothbrush and thongs. And games, and jumpers - it can get cold here at night when the wind's blowing a gale till after midnight. They've timed their stay quite well, as it's looking like hot troughed out weather for the next couple of days. This is perfect for just lazy beach days, which I'm not averse to after 6 days straight of sailing. A little recharge of my batteries is in order.

And I've a little video editing to do….