There was an element of irony associated with Wauchope-Bonny Hills Surf Life Saving Club's taste of the Ocean Thunder Surfboat Series last season.
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Ocean Thunder is an annual professional elite surfboat series held at Sydney's Dee Why Beach which attracts the best surf rowers in the world.
The club was invited to compete at the series as a replacement for a Collaroy crew who were hit by COVID which wiped them out of one of the rounds on January 9 this year.
But the Kockatoos had a brush with COVID themselves when crew member Myles Geddes had to withdraw after he tested positive to the virus.
Nine months later, Geddes and the Wauchope-Bonny Hills club have been invited back to take part in the series full-time and not just as a stop-gap measure.
Geddes will hope history doesn't repeat when the first of four events takes place on November 19 at Dee Why Beach.
"I got stitched up last time," he said.
"It's different because this time we're not doing just the one event, we're doing the whole series so it's a bit more serious and not just rock up and see how you go."
His teammates went within a whisker of knocking out national champions Bulli in the semi-finals before they finished just outside the top 10 in Australia.
They learned a lot from the first taste of mixing it with the best surfboat crews in the country with the second stint another chance to make an impression.
"It's good experience rowing against all the big boys from Sydney and seeing how we go against them," Geddes said.
"No expectations, it's not like we think we're going to win it or anything, but we do want to go and mix it with the best of them and see how we go.
"Hopefully we get a few good results and do everyone proud."
The Ocean Thunder Surfboat Series will be broadcast on Channel Nine across four events on November 19, December 10, January 7 and February 4.
"All the boys were frothin' to get into it last year," Geddes said.
