A big surf tale..
After 5 weeks of almost continuous back to back swells on the east coast, this one supposed to be the one. We have been amping on a 16-18 sec period swell now for nearly a week and a plan was made to paddle out in the dark to one of Sydney's northern beaches outer reefs that picks up every inch of swell with Hawaiian like ferocity.
It was one of those mornings where you just know it's gonna be huge, with a full moon reflecting on the massive walls of whitewater that confronted us when we rocked up to the normally sedate 'bay' where we would begin our paddle out.....Plan B. A quick decision was made to instead hit up my local point break which at least, is not a kay out to sea, and gets a little less swell.
We rock up and it looks about 3-4 foot, WTF!! Glen my goatie mate was straight out. I started paddling out in the protected corned when suddenly the horizon went black. Just before I dived under the first one I look up to see Glenn on a triple overhead monster with a wall that when on for eternity. After a thorough flogging I finally managed to scratch out the back thanks to the lulls provided courtesy of a 16 second period swell emanating from Antarctica.
The local surf report mob are calling it the biggest ridable point swell in 15 years – some triple overhead beasts rearing up a 100 meters out form the normal take off spot and running up to 400 meters down the beach. At one point the horizon went a shade of black I have never seen before – we sprinted like our lives depended on it to find the first (and smallest) one feathering menacingly. Glenn turned with a look of terror on his face and took off!! Thanks mate - now I had the 3 bigger ones to paddle over! Like some mysterious' hand of huey' at work, the beasts started pitching either side of me leaving a small feathering path to paddle over. I finally scratched over the last one and turned around to see the crew of 8 shorties completely decimated bar one guy. We both had a laugh and tried to settle the heart rate for the next set.
Needless to say some of the drops were insane and thank god I had my new DTM 9'1” gun (plug plug) which is just amazingly solid in the big stuff. The short board riders were doing it tough, completely under gunned and leaving the sets to me and Glenn – SUPs and Goat boats rock!! The pics below don't really do it justice.
The DTM gun scratching in at the last minute
Horrey sets
A 'smaller' inside one hitting the ledge - I got smashed!!
classic tale of the horizon turning black remember that nightmare well but hav'nt seen it for a long time , hopefully this swell will hit Qld soon.
or the garage if the wife doesnt allow...
