SAN JUAN and BARE NATURE days 1972 Byron Bay.

I arrived in Byron with my FC holden station wagon packed to the racks with wife ,4 month old son and 3 boards, no where to live, only the hope of running in to a friend Bill Mclean. With that all sorted I chased up work which varied from working on the council, then the putting in of the sewrage system, and then San Juan surfboards and Bare Nature surfboards as a Sander and fin maker , gloss coat and pinliner. San Juan was managed by John Thomas ( J T) at the time with John Blanch the shaper ,Bill mclean the Glasser and me, it was still single fins and Keel fins were being played around with with no real success, which was apity as the shapes of the boards were , but the keel let them down. Many a nice board was made then there were some bloody great designer shapers around and the quality of the finished product was number 1. It was also a time of change for some ,with JT and Blanchy and Bob Mctavish ,among others .gave up drugs and radicalism for a more honest way of life and became Jehovah wittnesses, but the boards still had their flair and the rest of us Pagans still continued on our merry way. When Bob arrived,and after, the main focus was on a more gunnier board , hotdogging boards had lost out for the more sleeker looking gun , and pintail., but there were changes happening as Michael Cundith had been making short wide twin fins and the locals were like the feel of hotdoggin and within a year a big change in design and fins was coming about. Bob made a variety of shapes for a variety of surfers but i was his pintails that were the nicest and at that time he made his first asymetrical... yep there were changes a happening....... stay tuned more to come