70s

1979 Spring Surf Session images by Gary Gibbon

Gary Gibbon is a retired school teacher and an enthusiastic member of The Prevelly Penguins swimming group at Margaret River.

Formerly from Queensland he has lived & surfed in the South West since early ‘70s.

This is collection of his SW surf photos.

November 1979 – Spring Sessions.

It’s late spring in 1979 and a drop in swell has coincided with some pleasant, early summer weather. The call is made and the crew decide to head towards a small swell, beach break magnet. Both lefts and rights were on offer, as they often are at this location. I’ve obviously decided to utilise the good conditions to take some photos before heading out myself. One interesting aspect of this session that I do remember, is that quite a few of the guys at this time were experimenting with twin fins, especially in the smaller surf. The Mark Richards influence back then, pre Simon Anderson inspired thrusters, was quite pervasive. I even borrowed Andy’s and Mark’s boards when I went out to play around, but found I kept frequently spinning out on bottom turns.

Surfers on hand: Andy Jones, Mark Favell (RIP), Lindsay Whittle, Ralph Redman, Nancy Burrows (I think) and Ross “Madhu” Anderson (I think). And Karli, Sally Gunter’s (later Jones’) dog, puts in an appearance too.

Photo Album

01 The set – up

The set – up.

03 Mark Favell

04 Andy Jones
05. Lindsay Whittle.
Am pretty sure at this time, Mark and Andy were working shifts together at Dunsborough Bakery and possibly Lindsay too. So being good friends and shift workers, they did quite a lot of surfing together. This was around the time I kicked off my stint at Caves House.

06 Lindsay Whittle

07 Andy Jones

08 Andy Jones

09 Andy Jones

10 Mark Favell

11 Andy Jones

12. Andy Jones twin fin cuttie
You can see that Andy (and Lindsay in 24 & 25) are quite keen to push the twinnies through their paces. Mark was funny in that regard and I always used to have a bit of a laugh with him about it. He very much liked to try new ideas in designs (twins, channel & concave bottoms, and later thrusters) but tended to still draw the same sort of unchanging, consistently stylish lines, that I’d seen him pull, since first seeing him surf at Noosa Heads in the early 1970’s.
13. Mark Favell

14 Ralph Redman. Often showed up for these sort of sessions back in the day.

15 Missed it by that much!

16 Karli was a great dog.
A cross between an alsatian and labrador, I often used to look after her, if Andy and Sally had to go somewhere they couldn’t take her.

17 Andy Jones

18 Mark Favell

19 An empty one with a nice little bowl.

20 Andy paddling in the foreground.

21 Madhu didn’t miss out on too much surf either.

22 Madhu

23 Andy Jones

24 Lindsay Whittle
25 Lindsay Whittle

26 Mark Favell

27 Mark Favell

28 Nancy Burrows used to switch quite a bit between surf mat and surf board depending on the conditions. Here she is sharing with Andy I think.

29 Andy and Mark engage.
We all like to share with each other, given the right wave and vibe. My brother John and I were “expert” at it back in the day, as I believe the King brothers are still, with their patented “Kings Cross”.
30 Madhu

31 Madhu
32 Andy Jones

33 Another empty keg worth tapping!

34. Andy Jones.

Thanks Gary, for sharing your SW surf images.

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