Where did you surf today?

No time for a surf this morning, but managed a quick bodybash out the front. Moderate south swell with a lot of grunt. Sand churners every single one of 'em.

enjoyed some small but clean fun beachies at one of my fave spots, crowd was almost nil, then a few turned up but no probs getting waves....saved a learner from the killer rip, then nearly got sucked out myself when having a swim....waves have been small but some great fun waves around of late...alot of other surfers I chat too have been whingeing , dunno if they are too fussy or I am still a stoked and deluded grom at heart.....chasing some more down tomoz too.....

Double overhead local right-hand reefie. Hard work, lots of wash-throughs. New sou-east swell and a bit disorganised. Unusual swell direction for this time of the year. Light winds from the NE. Bigger tomorrow. 5mm rubber, booties, gloves and hood. 6 out, but that's about standard in winter here. (water temp. about 6 deg, air temp about 4.)

Wow, sounds like good fun Zen! How do you keep your wetty dry or do you have to painfully put on the cold wet wetty every time you surf?

Me, I've been body surfing with a Pod around the Northern Beaches. Still not back to surfing after a knee op, but nearly there.

I have to say pod-surfing is a hell of a lot of fun, and when the waves are barreling or shore-dumping its the best thing to pull in and get pitted with.

Also keeps you a lot fitter than paddling around on a surf board as you have to be always swimming while waiting for waves, while as well swimming back out after catching a wave.

Here's a shot from this morning at Curly..

Hey Craig,

I have 2 wetties. No surfing today. Has bumped up a notch and it's a bit crazy. funky wind isn't helping.

I'm missing Oz, but my life is here and I can snowboard one day and surf the next.

How to you put a pic up (scuse my technological ineptness) and I'll try and find a good one of my local pumping?

Also, used to love shorey bashing back home on the 'ol hand-plane, I'm with you there on that one.

Just had a midday sesh at Longy. Not many surfers around and no-one in the flags which, of course, was where the best bank was. Kept pushing my luck, squeezing inside the 'no surfcraft' sign, then picked off a few nice ones from the edge of the flags. Paddled a bit further inside each time till I was pretty well lined up in the middle. If there a crossbar I was bang over the black dot.

Took off on a real nice left and while I was riding I heard His Majesty's Voice give me a warning, WOULD THE SURFBOARD RIDER IN THE FLAGS PLEASE MOVE TO THE NEXT BANK SOUTH. Gave the big fella a wave and paddled away. No waves breaking on the next bank south so I paddled in. As I went up and over the walkway the flagged area was still empty.

No real message or moral. But the left I got in the flags was a bloody nice wave.

I paddled out in the Yangtze. And waited. And waited. It was glassy but ...

Zen, firstly you need to sign up to a photo sharing site such as Photobucket or Flikr etc. and upload your photo there.

Then all you do is put the image url in between image tags like these [ img ] url [ /img ] but without the spaces.

Just the internet unfortunately

Thanks Craig. Will do so for future reference.

Hope you get a few nice ones to yourself this weekend.

Nice work lom.. jeez I love Vicco.

Looks super clean and fun lom!

I made a trip up the coast with my room mate to make the most of the new S'ly swell and offshore winds yesterday. Scored fun 3ft peaks with the odd 4ft'er, with no real crowds on the bank we sat on.

Well worth the drive..

OK, this didn't happen today. It wasn't even during my last surf, but it's worth recounting here as I've played it over in my head many times since it happened. Always seems the way when I get into a heated argument in the surf (rare, but it happens).

Wandered down to Manly late in the arvo and joined the throng. First thing I notice is a fella out there spicing things up with some great surfing and barely concealed alpha aggro: paddling for everything, taking everything, talking loudly. You know the sort of rooster I mean. He snaked me blatantly on one wave so I flicked off and he immediately flicked off behind me leaving the rest of the wave go unridden. Gave me the death stares on the paddle back out. Then he dropped in on me once. I wore it and paddled back out. Then he dropped in on me a second time and I snapped.

I rode behind him and flicked off when he flicked off. I asked him what was up and got in his face a bit. Call it standing up for yourself or blowing air on hot coals - at the time both were correct.

We arced up at each other for a while in the pathetic mano y mano sit-on-your-surfboard-and-size-each-other-off type way. He was an eager smart arse. I was seeing red.

Would I go to the beach? Would I what! So we started paddling toward the beach. To have a fight!

Somewhere around here commonsense kicked in and I realised I'm a fully grown, apparently responsible, adult with a kid and a mortgage and all that shit. I don't fight in the surf. I don't fight anywhere. A wave came through and he caught it while I turned and duckdived through it and started paddling back toward the line-up. I caught a nice right and then a nice left and didn't get dropped in on or snaked.

I sat up on my board and saw him on shore looking around for me. My mind was racing. I eyed off Fairy Bower and Queenscliff Headland: which would be the shorter paddle? How the fuck was I gonna get out of this?

A neighbour paddled out to the other side of the rip bowl I was surfing. I paddled over. "Hey M***"

"Hey Stu, what's up?"

"Nothing much...'cept there's a bloke on shore wanting to fight me."

"Really. What are you gonna do."

"Dunno yet, but here he comes."

Old mate (who was actually pretty young, probably mid-20's) was sick of waiting and came charging back over the low tide sandbank to have his fight. Fortunately, and I can't quite believe my luck here, my neighbour knew the fella and told me to relax, "I'll take care of it."

So, as Mr Angry, who was now as pent up as a caged gorilla that had been prodded with sticks, paddled toward me M*** cut him off and told him to chill out a bit. Mr Angry Gorilla looked confused. M*** insisted, "Paddle away. There's no fight here."

M*** winked at me and paddled away leaving me to fend for myself with an enraged but confused gorilla sitting not twenty metres away. He kept snarling. The tension was heavy. The crowd on the bank didn't know what to make of it though I'm sure some of them were enjoying the spectacle.

I was feeling like a right chump and to make matters worse Richard Tognetti, head violinist and Artistic Director of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, was among the crowd. He the culturally refined fella feeling The Glide and me locking horns in an animalistic display of territorial pissing. Tognetti took a wave from the inside and got dropped in on. He said nothing.

I ignored the continuing abuse and got a righthander to shore. I wasn't followed. Walking briskly up the beach I got home as the sun was setting and told my partner what happened. She called me a fucking idiot and I couldn't argue with her. That night the Sunny Garcia Burleigh beating was all over the news.

Sadly, we have all been there stunet. To avoid these types of situations I nolonger surf certain breaks or I am very careful about what time of the day I do ... like at dawn. Or when the peak gets crowded I just catch one in content with the waves I have ridden and in the knowledge that more will be breaking tomorrow or the next day.

First trip to NZ's North Island last Friday; managed to pick up 4ft of refracted energy from ex-TC Atu at Gisborne (across various beachies near Wainui). Apparently a number of locations in the Bay of Plenty region were firing around 10-12ft, with not many takers.

You needed Tognetti on the beach with the violin as accompaniment Stu.

Sort of real life opera meets UFC.

had a big 2 days at tassie w sw tass it was good for me i brought my bananas and nutragrain not too mention the raw salmon

takes 12 days too get here only by foot

Didn't surf today but saw the strong southerly change hit the harbour late this arvo. Winds came up from a 10 SW'er to around 30kt's from the south within a couple of minutes. Was pretty impressive.

Here's a couple of pics of the approaching change..

wow, hows the wind line demarcating the change.

Yeah, was pretty cool to see. I was hoping a big shelf/wall cloud would roll in, but alas, there was only a strong front of wind, with some wispy low level cold cloud.

^^^ Never let the truth get in the way of a good whinge, eh Tim?

Good to see the ugly, hate-filled man hasn't changed one iota and is still ranting about things he has no idea. Swellnet be original? If you took a look you'd see that the reason 'every decent thread at Realsurf is duplicated here' is because ex- Realsurf people did the duplicating. What do you want us to do, erase them?

You keep on whinging, after all, it's what you do best. Like the time you said all our tide times were incorrect 'cept you were measuring them up a river and we were measuring them on the coast (a surf site, can you believe?). Or when you moved to Noosa became a 'local' in a couple of months and started complaining about the crowds. Or your ridiculous anti-government rants.

Keep 'em coming: every village needs an idiot.

After over 2 months of not surfing on a board after a knee op, I finally took a mal out to Queensy this arvo which was generously lent by Stu.

At first I was really hesitant, I just wanted to get a small 1ft'er or so and trim sideways to check how the knee felt.

This was harder than it sounded with the low tide causing the straight lines of southerly swell to suck up and close out quickly.

I caught a handfull of waves and everything felt good, although I was very careful not to put any major strain on the knee.

I was only out there for just over an hour, but by the end I was confidently taking off on some bigger waves and feeling a bit of confidence coming back.

Now it's just a matter of taking it easy while hitting up the gym to build my right quad muscles again which have waster away considerably.

Here's the board that got me up and going again :)

I started this thread on RS few years ago, glad it is still goin and has been a good read, now I am having a go over here at Swellnet too, I just like surfing and the forums are good outlet for my obsession with everything surfing....good to see this thread here, keen to read more and see what everyones been surfing.....

today I surfed 1 ft shoreys with my son, and believe it or not, we had a blast...he was going for some decent turns and I am really enjoying seeing him improve....I rode a few different single fins, and a dim-SIM and a semi-finless thingy, just mixing it up for fun....one ( of the singles )of which I bought from Stu recently, seems he had a few guys riding old sleds of his today.....might be bout time he was riding one of my boards then.....

Ahh...if I had the money Mark. However the next board I get is for my little boy. He's too young to surf but I want a memento of his birth with the weather map of his birthday under the glass. Did the same thing for my nephew a few years back.

Sounds like you're taking your young fella surfing a bit: how old is he?

Wedge out of sight from the carpark, so not crowded. Nice punchy beach break.

now looking forward to SE swell, rising tide and light offshore tomorrow morning. The perfect combo for good waves down here. Just hope the 4th planet of good banks is also in alignment.

Awesome little waves today. A friendly crowd of 4, including myself. 2-3 feet, from ridiculously deep water onto a waist deep bank. Mini mexican pipe. Nearly as far south in Australia as you can get.

Lostclimber and mel-anoma, you guys from the same place?

I've been getting back into surfing gradually by taking out a longboard.

Although conditions looked crappy from shore over the weekend, once out there on the bigger board there were some fun banks to slide along.

Saturday was around 2ft or so at Queensy with a little right rip bowl running into a bank the QBC were surfing on. Went to Dee Why in the arvo and it was shutting down a bit but got a couple of solid ones in between dodging the shorey.

Yesterday was the best surf, with a left rip-bowl just south of the flags at North Steyne around lunch time. No one else was out on it and I got some 50-100m peelers, with one just reeling all the way to the inside.

I'm really enjoying just cruising and flowing along the wave as it sucks along the bank at the moment.

Final surf for the weekend was at the Bower on the low tide with a tiny 1.5ft wave rolling through, but still big enough for the wave to run for a good 50-100m's or so on the bigger sets.

All in all a good weekend of small cruisy waves.

Gday, Craig. You write, "Lostclimber and mel-anoma, you guys from the same place?" Well, nearly, Craig. Same state, but I'm even futher south. Yeah, that's right, even FURTHER south.

did any one see the photos around white rock 5 to 7 fut offshore clean clean clean barrels barrels and more barrels

No such thing as 7 fut... nor 7 foot or 7 feet for that matter.

Just saying.

Well where I surf 7 foot is used quite commonly and has always been.

Just saying.

Well where I surf 7 foot is used quite commonly and has always been.

Just saying.

By: "shaun"

I've heard they do things differently at Collaroy.

Hey Merkin, a 7 foot wave is a wave that's a little bit bigger than a 6 foot wave, but just a little bit smaller than an 8 foot wave. A bit like a 5 foot wave is a touch bigger than a 4 foot wave, but not quite as big as a 6 foot wave...... Heheeeeeeeeee!!

"shaun" wrote:

Well where I surf 7 foot is used quite commonly and has always been.

Just saying.

By: "merkin"

I've heard they do things differently at Collaroy.

Where's Collaroy? And what would be wrong with doing things differently, some surfers are just sheep.

Gotta say, anyone that mentions a 7ft wave while talking about surf instantly rings alarm bells in my head.

Not sheep, but that's just the way it is.

I agree craig. 7's and 9's seem to disappear.

Hows the surf? 1-2 and shitty. 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6 then 6-8, 8-10 and then farkin' scary mate!!

Here today it's 1-2 and clean.

Most of the breaks I chase don't light up till it's 6' and it is a fair jump from 6' to 8' so it's quite common for someone to call 6 to 7 or 7 to 8, why not if it's a solid 6' with a few bigger ones why not call it 6' to 7' when 6' to 8' would be exaggeration. If I and the guy's I surf with are kooks for that , so be it , but it does not seem like a very logical kook test.

Weird how it works
a)I reckon it's (just) acceptable to call it 6-7 ft .

b)But calling 7-8 ft is not on ! - sounds wannabe and/or no-ne will believe you !!

Better to use
a) " 6' plus "
b) " pushing 8' "

Wow you make me feel like a leper, but luckily I live and surf in a leper colony cause honestly this crap is ridiculous.

morning all yesterday i had one of the worst sessions of my illustrious career on near perfect conditions up here on the north coast nsw the break was somewhere between creso and coffs but i have a problem with trying to put a figure on the size! i know that i am bigwayne and as such should have all the answers but alas i dont.yes i am over 6'6" and that leaves me with a dilemma if the waves are over my head does that not make the wave 7 foot? if it at my chest then is that 5'6" or 6 foot? are these mesurements on wave height or face height? some people tell me that they call from the back of the wave? who surfs the back of a wave anyway? this is doing my head in and im am very fragile at the moment and would look to all the "experts" out in bigwayne land for some guidence! this call for help was broght to by big leghumper ghadffi wayne

An interesting point you raise, I am guessing that your head and mouth make up around 6"0' of your overall 6"6' structure, which would mean that a wave which is up to your chest is probably knee high to the normal man. Thus making conditions less than half a foot, but with your massive head you were probably down at the pub afterwards telling everyone about the ten foot conditons you were surfing.

Bwaynker, believe it or not I think some of these posters are actually serious about this very lame subject,be a good leader and don't mock your subjects. I thought you would have been more concerned that it has very little to do with the original thread, and we know how much that irritates you.

Well back on topic..

I went out for the early at North Steyne this morning. Had a quick squiz and it looked like it was a bit too fast for the longboard that I'm getting back into surfing on.

So I took out the handsurfer/Pod and let me tell you, it was the best decision ever!

A punchy NE swell was breaking fast across the inside sand bank with the good ones opening up.

IIt's hard to make it out of barrels on the Pod unless the wave slows down, so I got lots of barrel vision that usually ended in a bit of a beating as the shocky kicks in.

One of the more memorable waves was a fresk 4ft'er that jacked up right in front of me. It was too steep and already throwing over the guys who were too deep, but I was in prime position.

I swung around, kicked in and slided down the big smooth face before it threw right over me. Again didin't make it out, but the feeling of sliding into the wave and then see it throwing over, revealing its beautiful eye was enough to keep me stoked.

Got a few other memorable ones, but that one sticks in my mind the most!

Wow you make me feel like a leper, but luckily I live and surf in a leper colony cause honestly this crap is ridiculous.

By: "shaun"

So you're from Noosa?

"shaun" wrote:

Wow you make me feel like a leper, but luckily I live and surf in a leper colony cause honestly this crap is ridiculous.

By: "merkin"

So you're from Noosa?

No.

"merkin" wrote:

"shaun" wrote:

Wow you make me feel like a leper, but luckily I live and surf in a leper colony cause honestly this crap is ridiculous.

By: "shaun"

So you're from Noosa?

No.

Dapto?