Getting ‘loosa’ at Noosa

Huntington Beach’s traveling ambassador, Bob “The Greek” Bolen, and his wife Patty just came back from a three-week vacation in Australia. They landed in Sydney, flew to Melbourne and drove to Noosa to check out the famous surf festival at Noosa Heads in Queensland.

At the opening ceremonies there were Hawaiian dancers, local musicians and even some sea nymphs

Legendary surf figures were there, too: Shaper and movie star Robert August, old-school shaper Steve Walden, ‘60s surfboard designer Bob Cooper, big-wave standout Rusty Miller and former world surf champ from Surf City, Peter “P.T.” Townend.

The weather was great and the surf was good, and best of all the water temps were in the mid-70s.

Bolen even got his picture in the local newspaper for bringing ocean water from Huntington Beach for a blessing of the waters.

Noosa is also a national forest that has lots of wildlife, and Bolen saw koala bears, kangaroos and even monitor lizards roaming around.

He surfed a couple of other killer right-hand point breaks ? Tea Tree Bay, Nationals and Byron Bay, peeling blocks-long, in solid 8-foot surf ? before heading over to New Zealand.

Again he scored some more perfect, overhead, offshore waves at Back Beach and Wazzi’s surf breaks.

The water was clear, clean and aqua blue, with no shark sightings (there are supposed to be a few threshers in the area).

And, yes, Greek did drop off a few suitcases of his magic Turbo Tunnel fins on the journey.