‘Before Bells, there was Brighton’ wrote Michael Gordon in his book Bells. The Beach, The Surfers, the Contest. His story of Bells started with a tale of a break that no longer exists, between the Brighton Baths and the pier, where the grommets surfed in rude south westerlies. ‘There were a couple of peaks that broke more or less in the same spot and they were surfed with enthusiasm by a bunch of grommets, some of whom called themselves Storm Riders.’ These young surfers were the blokes who went on to make surf history in Torquay, after chasing waves ‘down the Mornington Peninsula to Phillip Island or along the Great Ocean Road, depending on the weather forecast.’ Bayside Melbourne seems an unlikely place to feature in the history of Australia’s iconic world surf league contest at Bells: the beaches along this suburban coastal strip are not known for their surf. But last weekend, it was Elwood’s chance to turn it on, with a decent southerly wind of fifty km/h which pushed the