Well Huey certainly came good for the Christmas swell , I'm stuffed had 2 full on days at Double Island Point 2 days before Christmas. Had Christmas day off and then hit Snapper early on Boxing Day , paddled out through Little Marly into the rip and then got sucked out to the 10+ giants on the 3rd reef off Snapper managed to pull down a couple of big sets against the reverse sweep .Very hard to find the take off spot and you never seemed to be far enough out to sea , I was already 50m out past the shark nets when the mother of sets stood up on the horizon , I was my 9-6 PSH Hull Ripper Pro which has incredible paddling speed , it got me up the face and over the first set and as I cracked through the the lip to a massive free fall down the back of the wave and unbelievably my feet landed back on the board I kept paddling only to see the sky darken as this 12ft monster crested and broke on my head.It was almost a 2 wave hold , got my head up for a quick breath and continued to get pumbled.I had my paddle locked out front to stop the tumbling and drag back and then..... POP there goes my leggie. Finally I surfaced to see the Westpac Helicopter hoving over my head with the door open to rescue me , I gave them the thumbs up I'm OK but they wanted to bring me in as I was getting sucked back out to sea through the impact zone again. I strapped the handle of my paddle through my leg rope strap and started the long 500m swim in , they kept an eye on me for about 10 mins but left me when I got to the inner break. 20mins later I was standing on the beach reeling from my Christmas day hangover and XOS pounding ,the life guards had recovered my board and drove me back to my car
Sorry no pics of the big day still chasing down the photogs on the hill , these shots are from the following day at a different spot but the swell had dropped considerably , the paddle out was hell, persistence paid off for some great waves , but I was hurting from the previous days and only lasted an hour .These pics are from Michael Dawes a local Photog on the Gold Coast.
If you look at the face on the first pic the face I paddled over at Snapper the day before was easily well over double this size.
I don't know when Huey will dish up swell like this again, but I can't say enough about the PSH 9-6 Hull Ripper Pro the board is so fast and sticks like sh!t to a blanket on any size wave and I've still been riding it in the smaller stuff and it rips ...just love it.
