best of luck guys!
olga is cat 2 and strengthening. predicted coast crossing at cairns in the morning.
sorry to be all selfish and all, but whats this mean for SEQ?
unpredictable strong winds? :D
nothing at this stage except no wind. 
unless it loops back around later in the week.
wow, did anyone watch the cyclone on the satelite?
it hit xtc nev and jumped north 
they are now sharing a bottle of op rum and getting it on. 
aparently they don't like cairns now
I was off the water on my yearly honeymoon this WE but went down this arvo for a look (thanks Luv), it was blowing pooploads, as I was thinking my smallest sail (5.9) was going to be way too big but bugger it, Olga hit the light switch and the wind died only to come back off shore and too light
Two were already out, one did 1 run with a 5.8 race sail and 80L slalom board and who just tail walked the whole way and the other had a 5.2 wave sail and a freestyle board, couldn't sheet in and was over a K out when it died and went off shore but that's another long story 
bugger!
you know what happened. olga got her head ripped off.
i was tracking it on the satelite, it stalled out off cairns, must be mountains inland.
same mountains that stopped nev in his tracks.
then olga and nev hooked up and spun around each other.
the fujiwara effect i believe it's called. i doubt anyhitng like that will happen anytime soon. it was fascinating.
then olga threw nev out to see and got stuck herself. nev kept spinning around her all the way out to willis island and then back in SW.
then the upper level winds just sheared olga in half. the top half headed off to the gulf and the bottom half stayed put trying to grab ex cyclone nev,
i have never seen anything like it. the most bizzarre thing, one minute it's cat 2 and then bang! nothing.
the remainder of olga was still out off cairns about 8pm. you could see it on the radar and the bom issued a high seas alert locating it at 80km NE of cairns. that's why the media said it had crossed and then said ex olga was still off the coast. the thing just exploded into pieces.
long story short, the top half is now in the gulf.
so, i hope your mates ar ok? long swim?
He would have been alright Kellie, he was waiting for that one lucky gust that never came before doing the old self rescue, the jetski saved him a long paddle.
On the self rescue thing, with boards now fairly wide it's not that easy to paddle back. I broke a mast once more than 2K's off shore, no problem just derig, roll and tie it all up and paddle home, wrong even at 58cm wide the board was hard to paddle because my arms where rubbing on the boards non slip. After about a K I was bleeding like a stuck pig, still got faint scars. Happy ending, even though I was the only windsurfer that day and no one knew I was in trouble, one kite went out further than usual for them and found me by accident and towed me in 
Because I sail with Pat Malone, I carry a prepaid mobile phone in an aquapac in my impact vest with the water police, coastguard and local pub's number just in case I break anything out wide (and start to get thirsty). This was necessitated when I broke a boom on dark last year about 2.5km out.
PS - you can easily talk and hear through the aquapac or text your position (GPS co-ords) and voila, you're saved.
Just came in from a 7:00am powered to overpowered session on a 77l Fanatic Freewave and 4.7m North Ice at Blacks Beach - Relatively flat water behind sandbars, 25-35 knots and even some sun. Why did I recently sell my 4.2???
Hopefully heading back there as long as the wind is still up this afternoon after high tide once the lagoons form again.
