The year that was…

Well that’s it for another year. This is our last communication until 2010. Thanks for reading this salt crusted update from the beach…I still can’t believe there are so many of you interested in it as I’ve never marketed it – you just came by or a mate stuck you on it. What started out as a muck-around-email between friends has grown to over 30,000 subscribers from all over the globe and a further 120,000 unique people look at the website every month. Gotta say, it freaks me out in the mornings knowing how many read it (typos and all)…

March 2010 marks 11 years of Aquabumps. Yup, no joke. It all started in 1999, that’s before blogs were popular (don’t think they were even around then), when digital cameras cost a fortune and you read every single email that hit your inbox (‘cause you only got 5 per day). The only other surf sites in Oz at the time were Coastalwatch’s cams and Don’s with Realsurf. There seems to be a dozen websites per beach nowadays, good to see everyone getting up for the early…

Fanx

Lotta people work on Aquabumps nowadays, some for big cash, some for free – here’s the big thanx…Special thanks goes to Jon Frank, one the best water shooters for introducing me to water photography. Massive thanks to Returnity for helping me reach 30,000 readers with their salubrious bulk email tools. Onya Canon for supporting me with the best camera gear in the business (yeah you Macleod). Gloria, Aimee, Tracy, Ming, Mischee for all working in the gallery and puttin’ up with me. Zac, Robb, Stephen, Chris Jones for all working on my website and iPhone app. Peroni, Jed wines for lubricating the gallery. All the advertisers – keeping the daily free, Kelvinator you I.T. genius, Bart you photography oracle, Tengirri Mentawai charter boat, Ness, Jv for mentoring, Andi from World is round for the new gallery design, Grego + Pete for building it reasonably, CBA (one of my biggest clients), all that have purchased from the gallery and my lady friend Deb for listening me talk about Aquabumps 24/7. Phew…thanks to all the readers!

2010 will be another big year. Got some great things planned as we expand the Aquabumps empire. We’re running a survey soon so you can have some input in what goes on here.

I’ve put together my favouriate batch of pics from 2009 – CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE BEST OF 2009

Have a great Christmas, and New Year…

Regards,
Eugene Tan (Uge)

PS – there are no waves today! hit the beach before the glorious weather changes (rain for the next few days). Swell tomorrow.