Here is a little run down of my little adventure and the waves i caught:
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Sunday: Arrive up the coast just in time for the NRL grand final. Sit down with my brother and my dad for some "Man Time" and enjoy the usual football game, abusing the refferee, and commenting on how if we were on the field we would be doing such a better job than these trained proffesionals
Monday: Wake up with low expectations on the surf front to stumble up to the beach to find there is a nice and peaky 2-3foot swell hitting the primed banks. There was not a breath off wind and this saying will describe the conditions "as smooth as a babys bottom". ahahahah.
I manage to score an uncrowded peak and find myself pulling under and into these glassy curtains of water and having time stand still untill i am brought back to reality by either getting closed out of making the time warp/machine we call the "barrel".
This continued on for another 3hours untill the tide got to high and the banks had to much water on them and the waves went Fat.
I decided to call it a day
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Tuesday:
Prior to this day i knew it was going to be by far the worst day for waves, but i was determined to surf in any condition. It was sunny and there was no wind with 1-2foot swell peeling to the shore. So why not take advantage of these conditions from the usual onshore conditions we are usually faced with.
I suited up and was paddeling out to a peak and as cliche as this sounds i saw a black shadow moving near the other peak about 15metres to the left of me, only to have a guy on a surf ski shout shark. This was a wake up call for me and the other 4 surfers near the ski as they turned and paddeled in with super human strength and speed. I did not stick around to find if the shark was going to leave as it was only a small swell, but later that day i was talking to a local fisherman who said it was a really big bull shark. Yikes
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Wednesday: (The Day Before The Big Swel Was Due To Arrive)
Days before a swell event are always filled with anticipation and happy times. Today was no different as a 6foot south swell was expected with offshore winds at my beachie to fill in by the afternoon.
I woke up and did my weetbixs like a typical aussie and went round to a mates house who was staying up near me. This guy is an on and off booger who i converted a few years ago, he is not super confident and i have been edging him into bigger waves for around 4 years now. After much discussion and reasurance that it was not going to be huge till later this arvo, i managed to get him down for a boog with me and my brother. It was a super clean 2-3foot swell that was on the rise. Perfect to edge him into some bigger ones as they came through.
For the first 2hours i just swam around with my fins on helping my brother and mate on technique and helping them ride the waves alot better. The looks on there faces when they were getting some 100m rides on these little grinders was great, next best thing after catching waves is helping someone else catch them.
Then it was my turn for some waves, the next 8 hours involved me and my mate and my brother catching these wedgy peaks with a few other locals surfers. Including many breaks inbetween ofcourse. (My mate is a diabetic so he has to constantly be watched and eat otherwise he might go for a sleep with the fish's)
One highlight was when i got an inside grinder and managed to hit the side wave front on coming at me and i did one of the bigest back flips of my life. It was a super good feeling landing it aswell infront of some surfers who then commented on how good it looked.
After a super long session i decided to call it a day as my ankles were bleeding from my flippers rubbing so much.
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Thursday:
6-8foot South swell(with bigger bomb's occasionally), with 90km/hr Offshore winds and outerbanks breaking = not a day for a paddle in booger.
Today was an enourmous effort to get out to the break. I toughened up and decided to give the beachie a go as the winds were tearing into the reefs/points.
This session involved me duck diving, taking bomb sets on the head, and a sweep faster than you can say cheese. I managed to get 1 wave and that was to get back in after 45mins of paddeling. It was worth a try but without a jet ski i was not going to be getting many waves out there today.
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Friday:
Today delivered the good's, 4-5foot south swell, light offshore winds and some nice banks from yesterday's swell. The main peak was a grinding right that was really fast and powerful, BUT, not to fast to be able to make the long barrels that were available if you waited for the right one.
I got a lot of decent waves today but none that would stand out in my memory bank of "Michaels Waves" - "The Brain"
A Picture Of Me Taken by my Dad - A Frog Legged Reverse
My Little Rant From Today
The crowd's all came out of the nooks and crannies today as there was so many people on the waves, one thing about surfers and boogers is that they all tend to be like sheep, they see a peak with a lot of people and assume that, this wave is the better one because everyone is on it. But if they only stopped and watched for 5minutes they would realize that not only is it more crowded and inconsistent that 100m up the beach there is about 4 better peaks with litterally no one on them. I was once like this but have learned my lesson numerous times and paddeled out to an empty peak.
But my sheep theory came into action and gradually people would paddel out to me and then my peak would be overcrowded, so id move again. And it would get crowded again. By the end of this cycle i had paddeled so far up the beach i couldnt really see my gear. (was ok cause all i had was a towel, sunscreen and wax.)
RANT OVER
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Saturday:
This was the last day of my north coast adventure and i was determined to milk all the waves i could get. The swell was on the decline and the wind was around , so i decided to go to a back beach to find a clean 3-4foot swell. The weekend crowds were out again. Post Cont Bellow:
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Before i continue this post id like to differentiate between north coast weekend crowds and sydney crowd's:
Sydney Weekend Crowd's : Invasion - To Many To Count
Sydney Weekday crowd's: still quite alot of people, just bareable.
Coast's Weekend Crowd's: Can count with my fingers and toes
Coast's Weekday Crowd's: Can Count With My Fingers.
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Cont:
I managed to get some reasonably gaping barrels at this beachy today, and as the tide got lower so did the frequency of the bowling waves. Wave after wave in crystal clear water, quite tropical , and not a house in site, the way soul surfing should be. I decided as i had been booging prone all week to hit up the DK and double knee. Im quite a kook at dk with my overly large stealth flippers on so it was qutie an achievement to pull into some barrels dk. What was more fun was kneeboarding on the bodyboard, its so easy to steer the board and do big hacks and reverse's, and a different perspective in the barrel is always a plesent change.
This went on for another few hours before i headed back to sydey.
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And that was my week up the coast
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