All Images Sam Venn

Locals revel in unseasonal winter like swells at the start of 2024 down in Van Demons land.

With the New Year's and summer holiday hangovers just starting to subside you’re more likely to find the Tassie surfing community enjoying their small window of sunshine and warm weather than rubbering up and chasing mutant slabs around the island. Yet mother nature and the Great Southern Ocean had other plans serving up a whopping purple monster right off the Arctic shelf in the first few days of Febuary in 2024, literally just days ago.

With a few international crew flying in for the swell event, notably Nathan Florence and his trusty filmer Zord, plus a few Aussie hellman in the form of Kipp Caddy, Shaun Pyne, Benny Sawyer, Cameron Staunton and of course Sam Venn, they were respectfully outdone by the core group of Tasmanian bodyboarders who have ruled supreme out this notorious slabbing patch of rocks for well over a decade now in Shipsterns Bluff, one of Australias premier world class slabs.

Summer time Stern