Bali Tourism News

Brothers seek help to chase surfing dream

June 20th, 2008

Ed Earl

THE Gold Coast surfing gods can breathe a sigh of relief — the next wave of Coolie kids has been unearthed.

After moving from Lismore 10 years ago, the Pereira-Ryan brothers, Sol and Ice, are getting ready for their next journey — to continue on when surf legends Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson retire.

The journey is not an easy one for the Snapper Rocks based surfers.
The teens aim to compete in the Occy Grom competition in Bali in early August and will have to work and fundraise to get more than $8000 needed for travel and accommodation by mid-July.

“Hopefully we’ll be getting some good waves in Bali,” said 16-year-old Ice.

Tourism operator Worldtourism will match every dollar raised.

“Some people just go in, get a contract and then they fly straight off all over the world. It’s a bit hard for us and we are struggling,” said Ice, a part-time labourer, who works with his dad.

“We can only do Gold Coast comps because we can’t travel to many other places,” added Ice’s 15-year-old brother, Sol.

Ice, whose nickname is the Iceman, said he moved from bodyboarding to board riding six years ago and had always loved the water.

He said he had dragged Sol into surfing about four years ago.

“I got him into it and he’s better than me. He’s been surfing nearly half the time as me,” said Ice.

“That’s why half the time, I don’t let him get waves, I don’t want him getting better than me. I just try to pull him off and make him get the little ones,” he joked.

Sol, a Palm Beach Currumbin High School student, placed first at the Queensland School Surfing Titles.

Ice recently won the Surf to Save Kirra competition and placed in the Rip Curl Grom Search.

Sol and Ice have four sisters and one brother.

All family members have three letters in their names, as do their Samoan-born mum and their Aussie dad.

Sol said it was a challenge warming up to some of the fierce local surfers.

“People don’t really like us and some don’t really like the outsiders around here — they are really competitive here,” said Ice.

“A lot of the guys don’t like it because we’re from a different background. They don’t really like it but we tell them to get lost and they are just going to have to accept us.

“We don’t let other people bring us down.”

Source: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/

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