“You know it’s Easter when you start seeing ‘No Surf at Bells’ stories, a newspaper sports writer grumbled to me last year.

Well, that was last year. This year? It’s pumping.

Well, pumping ish. As we’ve said before, Bells is a tricky, tricky wave to surf a contest at, and the first two days of competition have proved that beyond a doubt.

The Rip Curl Pro got underway on Wednesday, when a layday was called on Tuesday’s first official day of competition due to lack of swell. Wednesday morning was a different story, with clean and solid lines stacking up through the Bells bowl. 

Round 1 went generally to program, but after the morning’s offshore wind turned south westerly, it was pretty ugly surf. While Mick Fanning, Joel Parkinson and Kelly Slater cruised directly through to the third round, Taj Burrow, Jordy Smith and Josh Kerr were among the early high profile scalps. A’course, Round 1 doesn’t count for much as no-one is eliminated, but today’s second round saw plenty of frustrated faces and even the odd board get punched in anger as surfers got knocked from the comp.

But first up today was the chicks, and for their second round, Bells was pretty much flawless.

Carissa Moore was in the day’s third heat against local wildcare Nikki Van Dijk and couldn’t believe her luck.

“Halfway through that heat Nikki and I were looking at each other thinking ‘are you serious, it’s just you and me surfing right now?’” she said. “In the mornings, we don’t really catch many waves because all the guys get the good ones, so it was nice to get some good conditions. I don’t really remember my waves too well, I just remember being psyched to surf and having this beautiful wall in front of me.”

At the completion of the girl’s second round, the call was made to move the men down to Winki Pop, the next reef around the Bells headland. It was a decision the surfers were all stoked with, and if you caught any of the webcast or the coverage on Fuel TV, you’ll have seen why. The first two heats followed the script with Jordy Smith beating local wildcard Adam Robertson and Owen Wright demolishing young Brazilian upstart Gabriel Medina. Having gone all the way to the final in 2009, Robbo was unlucky against Jordy, but unluckier still was former winner Taj Burrow, who lost by less than half a point to Santa Barbera goofyfooter Bobby Martinez.

Speaking of Bobby, those with a keen eye will have noticed quite a few surfers are missing stickers from the noses of their boards. In the chicks, Bec Woods, Jessie Miley-Dyer and former world champ Chelsea Hedges are all doing the tour unsponsored. Bobby Martinez recently parted ways with major sponsor O’Neill, while CJ Hobgood and Chris Davidson are yet to pick up another sponsor having been let go by Globe and …Lost, respectively.

It didn’t stop any of ‘em in the water though, with all three blokes progressing. Davo’s heat against Julian Wilson was the most interesting, with the North Narrabeen veteran completely demolishing the Sunshine Coast kid. Julian was pissed, taking it out on his board in the shorebreak.

My god the surf looked pretty for the final few heats. It was deceiving though, with the guys struggling to find sections for high performance turns. Following Davo’s lead the old blokes prevailed. Kieren Perrow got past Hawaiian youngster Dusty Payne with some nice rail to rail surfing and as I type the last heat of the day is in the water with the king of the cutback, Taylor Knox, surfing against Portugal’s Tiago Pieres.

The forecast’s looking great – it should be a killer weekend of waves.