The Australians often pray to a wave god named Huey. Huey is usually called up during long-lasting waiting periods or in the last few seconds of heats. Today, Huey smiled on contest director Luke Egan, and several lucky competitors that scored their heat winning ride in the last few seconds, most notably, the Brazilian wildcard Bruno Santos who took down a very disappointed and unlucky '07 World Champion Mick Fanning. Here's Huey, sending some technicolor love into the flotilla in the channel.

Yesterday, before the swell picked up, the boys gathered down at "the point" to exchange fishing stories and show some pearly whites to the media. Here's Dayyan Neve (blue shorts) who blazed through his heat today with two high scoring tubes hanging out with Nic "mushy" Muscroft (black shorts) who unfortunately continued his injury reserve spot/high hopes/failing to perform against the world's best/but not for lack of talent streak, and Kai Otten (black shirt) working on fixing the boat motor.(No idea who the other guy is.)

Mushy, giving the photographers the "thumbs up" that he's ready for his closeup. 

Here's Mushy trying really hard not to fall off his "pushy" (Australian for "bike"), under the pressure of go211 cameraman, Dwayne's filming.

Mushy continues his photo shoot by posing with locals on bikes for go211.com and aspworldtour.com 

Billabong Spain's marketing director, Carmen, showing off her Billabong bikini and umbrella. The umbrella would prove useful for protection against sun and rain, which were both endured by those of us who spent all day floating on a large inflatable raft in the channel. Let's not talk about dehydration and sunburn.... 

Bobby Martinez, catching a ride out to the lineup after picking up his jersey at the beach marshal boat. 

This is me, checking out the action from the beach marshal boat. Since the swell direction was very West, the action was difficult to see from the back. At least swimming back and forth between boats made the day extra entertaining. 

Team Brazil had a very successful day today. Neco Padaratz, Heitor Alves, and Bruno Santos all advanced to round 3. Some of the highest heat scores of the day going to Heitor and Adriano De Souza.

Other notable moments included the Kelly Slater vs. Jamie O'Brien heat in Round 2. Neither surfer would have been expected to end up in the losers round and it is a shame that only one could continue advancing. That one was Kelly, who living up to his "i don't give a shit attitude" jumped on the red-eye from California last night and showed up at 5am this morning, straight into competition. 

Mick's loss was close and devastating. He lost his first round with a score of a 6 when he needed a 6.1, then only barely didn't come out of a long threaded tube, keeping the door open for Santos who took off and scored in the last few minutes. He was not happy.

Andy turned showed his bull-dog spirit against Tim Reyes. Tim had a high score and Andy had nothing. Andy took off time and time again but couldn't come out and yelled obscenities that were clearly heard from the channel. Another attempt left him with a broken board. A weaker man would have crumbled or simply given up. Fortunately for Andy fans, one of the "most competitive surfer on tour" regained composure, got a sick one, needed a small score and with less than a minute remaining, looked to be shut out. Even Timmy seemed content and rather than sit on Andy, left him to paddle to the inside. With less than 30 seconds remaining, a wave came. Tim was too deep to keep Andy off it. The former 3x World Champ detonated 3 critical turns to get the score and win.

Tomorrow, i'm most looking forward to the rematch of Kelly and local Billabong wildcard Manoa Drollet. Manoa handed Kelly his first heat loss of the year in Round 1, and Kelly claimed in an interview that he was eager for payback. Should be good.