IMHO 6'6 to learn on is way too short.

Have you ever watched some Japanese or Brazilian surfers? They wiggle all over the place and never use their rails. It looks awful.

Now understand that this is mostly because they started surfing on boards way too short for them and learnt to wiggle turn because they could.

Do yourself a favour and go 7'2 minimum for the first 6 months at least. You will learn to use your rails and carve and create speed correctly. When you come down in size you keep this technique on smaller boards but can be more aggressive with it. Do yourself a favour and watch Joel Parkinson in a video. You know his Dad was a surfer and without doubt he learnt on boards way too big for him and learnt to turn not wiggle.

The other upside is you will catch twice as many waves each session and get to learn how to turn twice as fast having double the fun. More waves, more fun.

Some people are concerned that big boards look kooky. Nothing looks kookier than someone on a too small board struggling.......

For what it's worth, my first two boards were both heavy old 7.2 single fins from the late 70's - and I was a skinny little 14yo surfing metro beachies (99% Trigg).

By the end of a year my first 'real' board was a 5'10" single fin (I'm 5'10"). Another 12 months down the track I was ready to order my fourth board - a custom 6'2" thruster...

My vote for the NSP 6'4 Fish. --- or any other big thick fish you can find.

If you have only been surfing for a little while you want something big, floaty, easy ect. ect. as said before plenty of times.

While you could go down to a short board, you may find that you are fighting it when it comes to catching waves.

If you get a big fish you will spend a lot more time on the waves - both catching them and staying on them.

Remember, Perth is often small and sometimes even smaller, so big boards come in handy.

Also, I think if you buy a bigger standard short board, your surfing will improve and eventually you will want to up grade to something smaller. If you have a fish instead of a bigger short board I think you will still want to use it (on small days) even your on your way to prodom. Whereas a bigger small board won't be as fun when you are better.

....come to the fish side......

Haha procastination at its best mate. At the same time cheers for the advice. Will definately think about getting a fish in the future wen I actually become good enough to use it not to mention have some $$ to my name!

CHEers