Staring down the barrel of the beginning of the 2012 season is such an exciting feeling. It has been five months since our last event the US Open of Surfing and I’ve had such a fun filled off-season. It’s the first big break I have had from competing for a few years so I was looking forward to exploring new places and learning something new. Looking back I have definitely covered some ground travelling to New York, Barbados, Bali, The Mentawais, Fiji and Hawaii to name a few destinations where I surfed, snowboarded, had photo shoots, checked out some new sports and even turned 21.

My first trip took me to New York; a giant city, 16,000 times bigger than my hometown, full of so many fun things to do. For me New York is like everybody’s favourite search engine. A city with everything and you can search for your own new adventures every day. Being a sports fanatic, I was in my element watching my first live American Football and Ice Hockey games whilst I was there. I got stuck into it cheering like a mad woman, dressed in the teams jerseys.

I then ventured to Barbados a small island in the Caribbean. It is an absolutely beautiful spot; the water there is like surfing in a bath it is so warm and has the most unique colouring to it, an amazing aqua blue. I lucked into a really fun swell for my whole trip and surfed all corners of the island. It is ideal to find waves that aren’t too crowded, so when you have time to explore when you aren’t competing it is such a treat. One of my favourite things to do is to search for waves with no one on them. It’s like finding your own secret jewel and you can get wave after wave. Barbados definitely had some jewellery.

I also spent a few weeks travelling through Indonesia on one of our Roxy team trips. It’s always a blast hanging out and surfing with all the girls. I have such a dream job; surf for the most part of the day, training and working on parts of your surfing that need extra attention in the off season and getting video and photos in all the latest Roxy gear for their upcoming campaigns. On the mainland we rode elephants bareback, got around on scooters and Jet Ski’s, launched off 15 metre rock jumps, released baby turtles back into the ocean and journeyed out to the Mentawai islands to get really fun waves all in a few hard weeks of work. It was another incredible adventure.

Happy Surfing
Sally Fitzgibbons, Professional Surfer
www.sallyfitzgibbons.com
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Check Out:

Sally Fitzgibbons Blog - The Challenges
Sally Fitzgibbons Blog - Preps for 2012 Season