18th December 2021

It was a week of rain wind and frowns leading up to Tuawera. We were faced with horrible weather and the potentially horrible decision of postponing the first Tuawera. On the Wednesday of the week leading into the competition I was surfing with Mark, we were having a yarn and I asked him to throw us in his morning prayer the next day, we were after all the help we could get. As the sky started to clear on Friday so did our worries. To set the scene the movie of the night was Surfs Up a classic surf film. On the morning of the birth of Tuawera, we woke to the sun shining, birds chirping, and offshore knee-high peelers. We couldn’t have wished for much more. The morning began with our opening Karakia. Our first surfers took to the water and it was all on. We had an amazing morning till the notorious Christchurch easterly kicked in. The waves became hard to surf but the smiles weren’t washed from our faces. The surfing was over and then the night boogied in. We all gathered at Clink where the festivities began we crowned our champions and danced the night away. We would like to thank everyone for showing up and making this possible. We look forward to seeing you all next year.