Adam Melling, a root note with arpeggios, Victoria

This morning, officials called opening day a lay day at the Rip Curl Pro, Bells Beach. The sun’s out, the weather’s fine, the ocean is smooth. But, there’s no swell. Yesterday, it was clear that what was left of the last pulse was dissipating, which meant that the 34 men in town for the event burned off to look elsewhere.

“The boys were out on the hunt,” says photog Ryan Miller, who ended up landing at 13th Beach with a troop. “Mixed reviews at 13th today. From the cliff it looked clean and heaps of fun. But out there, opinions varied wildly about the quality of surf. ‘Small, soft and barely functioning – just like your dick, Miller’ was what I got from one WCT surfer.”

But Adam Melling, pictured here blowing the back outta something smallish but fun, had no problems. And how could he, a surfer with such seamless fundamentals, not manage those transitions despite lack of juice? His wave choice didn’t hurt, either: “He chose the inside reform which actually packed a little bit of a punch opposed to the out the back soft peak,” says Miller.