48 Hours in Byron Bay

Not one for standing still too long, Caleb Pont – fresh in from Fiji – wastes little time in organizing his next adventure, turning a planned gear pick-up in Byron Bay into a spontaneous two-day foil mission alongside friend & photographer, Beau Blake…

I’d just got home from a big stint working on Namotu Island Resort. This time back home is usually when I catch up on real-world stuff and pick up some fresh FLITELab* gear from the office in Byron Bay. I figured, why not turn it into a little foil mission weekend? I could test some new FLUX front wings with Chris Reynolds and muck around on the AMPJet. So, I hit up one of my mates from home, Beau Blake, who also works as a coach and photographer on Namotu. I told him we were going on a road trip, to pack his camera, and that we were going to film some stuff. He was keen straight away. The weather was looking a little suspect, but we didn’t really care we just wanted to hang out, catch up with friends, and shoot some cool sh*t on the foils.

“The weather was looking a little suspect, but we didn’t really care we just wanted to hang out, catch up with friends, and shoot some cool sh*t on the foils.”

Day One: Gloom To Bloom

After a long, traffic-heavy four-hour drive, we both pulled into a mate’s place in Wardell, about 30 minutes from Flite HQ and the famous Wategos foil haven. We hit the hay early, hoping for clean waves and sunshine in the morning. Turns out, we got the opposite. It was freezing (well, for me anyway, I’m definitely Fiji-climatized), gloomy, and the surf was tiny. I was a bit rattled because I swear I hadn’t scored good weather in ages. Luckily, we were chasing some black-and-white AMPJet images anyway, so the gloomy weather actually worked in our favor.

After sinking about eight coffees and a few meat pies between us at the local bakery, we spent half the day scouring the coastline for decent conditions. We ended up right back where we started, Belongil Beach. It was light offshore with one to two feet of swell, perfect for the AMPJet. We suited up and paddled out. I decided to run the 808cm FLUX with a 160cm stabilizer as it was pretty tiny and wanted something I could pump around a bit but not sacrifice too much maneuverability. After who knows how many button smashes on the AMP, it finally ran out of battery and, coincidentally, Beau’s camera battery died at the exact same time. Classic. Still, it turned into a super fun session. Plenty of link-ups with the camera, and we burned off all those bakery calories.

Back at the house, we kicked back and went through the footage. Of course, the sun came out the moment we decided to call it a day. The sunset was unreal, so we made the most of the golden light, shooting some lifestyle content and gear assembly clips. There’s not much out there showing how the AMP and RAW setups go together and how easy they are to build, so it felt good to capture that. The property we were staying at was right on the beach, with an epic bush-to-beach contrast. I swear we assembled and disassembled those foils about 800 times before it was finally beer o’clock.

Day Two: Bluebird

The next morning we woke to dreamy bluebird skies, no wind, and a little south-east swell that filled in overnight. We were frothing. We hooked the ski to the van, drove down to the Evans Head boat ramp, and decided to foil the open beachies on the RAW setup.

Beau started the morning flying the drone, trying to lock in some tight shots and nearly took my head off a couple of times. Then he switched to a water housing and swam out to where we were towing. Credit to him, I probably wouldn’t have been too keen to swim near that river mouth; there were definitely some monsters lurking around.

The updated 707_FLUX wing felt incredible, super surfy and fast. It handled tight, steep turns on the closeouts with ease. The more I ride this gear, the better it feels. Every update or tweak in design brings some kind of improvement. Well, mostly we do get the odd shocker where I’m like, “Yeah nah, that didn’t feel great at all.” But that’s all part of the R&D process, and honestly, I love every bit of it.

We kept towing until the ski ran out of fuel, and by that point our legs were absolutely cooked. Naturally, we wrapped up the morning with a chicken parmi at the local pub before the long drive back to the Sunshine Coast.

I was stoked with the content we captured over the weekend and we ticked off everything we’d hoped for. It’s always epic working with Beau; he’s a waterman just like the rest of us, and he shreds on the foil too. He just gets it, knows how to read the rider, anticipate the line, and put the camera right in the zone. All in all, the weekend foil mission was a total success. I’m sure it won’t be long before we’re planning another one.