Watch: Not Another Superbank Video
Size, period, tide, and direction ain't enough to ascertain how the waves will be. There are more variables within and small changes make big differences.
Take Tuesday afternoon for instance. Swell due east, 2.4 metres at just under 10 seconds, low tide just after midday. The same data set has aligned many times over the last six months, but somehow something was different and the session was elevated into something very special indeed.
Great angle here, looking up the line from Big Groyne, with Mikey Wright, Sheldon Simkus, Occy (snr and jnr), and many others getting wonderfully slotted through Greenmount.
Eyes peeled at the 0:35 second mark for photographer Josh Bystrom shooting Wednesday's WOTD.
Comments
Great angle alright. Some incredible rides. How's what that wave did at about the 5:00 mark. Pig dog to annihilation :-)
Wow. Talk about a wave pool.
Plenty of big grins!
How much do you reckon it would cost to get it to yourself for a day? Say $1000 in every surfer's pocket and $1000 to a charity of their choice, so $2000 per surfer, 200 surfers? Plus armed patrol to enforce it, say $500,000 for a day like that alone? Or is it cheaper to just pay whatever the WSL does to government?
Even better, imagine it empty and pumping for a whole day. Superbank For Charity day. That would actually be cool, a single day every year where everyone donates and nobody enters the water.
Imagine best ever and your not allowed out due to charity day. How many would break the unwritten law?
As soon as one went, everyone would go!
Would be so cool to see it empty, what's one day really.
Charity bets on who starts jonesing the hardest haha.
Had it to myself one day.
When Commonwealth Games was on and everyone left town.
Wednesday of the Second week. 1pm. 2-3 foot perfect, no one out.
Stepped into the keyhole behind a young fella, thinking, "this is not real, can't be real... this perfect an no one out, and I'm feeling good, fit". The very next second, young fella gets sucked into a vortex -a wave spinning along the rockline of the keyhole, disappears. Laughed, thought nothing more of it until I put my board up to the approaching whitewater, jumped, and..... whack! This kid was spinning underwater and rammed straight into my board! What the fark!!!! He's still underwater, then pops up a few metres back with a black eye and completely shaken. "U alright buddy?", "yeahhh... I'm ok", he replies. I turn around, eyes on the prize, better check my board... massive drag dings and one huge puncture right through the bottom -fffaaaaaaaaarrrrrrkkkkkkiiiiinnnnn caaaarrrrrnt!
So instead of surfing perfect superwank to myself -a local, I walk this kid back to his dad, "look what he did to my board!"
Ape out
I remember living up there for a while....there's something weird about flying down the line with 100 guys all sitting there silently thinking "fall off...fall off...fall off...fall off...."
Fuck that pressure would kill me.
Never thought I’d say this about a Cooly clip, but that was unique
Fuck Occy.
Funny, one guy in a steamer, one guy in board shorts.
.....and funny only one drop in, miracles do happen!
Yeah "another" superbank vid but I really enjoyed that perspective. Quite different. Liked the absence of a soundtrack too.
Looks so dreamy and fun until you recall the levels of angst, jealousy, cardio and disappointment overcome typically necessary to jag a goodie.
Keep expectations in check (read low) though and the superbank is still super-enjoyable.
There's nothing more accurate than this formula for getting a wave there.
Not sure there’s a wave in the world I’d take over 5 ft NCO Greenmount
NCO?
No c#%t out?
'No crowd out' had come to mind, wasn't sure though... I guess your version probably better encapsulates my feeling toward everyone as soon as I paddle out!
Have you ever surfed Boiling Pot at 6ft? Or Crescent Head at the same size? Those are my two favourite point waves of all time. As long a ride or longer as superbank/greenmount and better shaped. And less crowds - anywhere has less crowds than superbank. Greenmount was actually a better wave before the superbank because the waves peeled around the headland and offered the best protection from the wind, and therefore the cleanest waves, on the gold coast.
Some fun curlers there and only one drop in...makes it look appealing alright.
160 lucky pros about to get it too themselves for at 30 mins. Notice Julian Wilson is in the draw but not The BIG O.
Yeah Owen's in there: https://www.worldsurfleague.com/events/2022/cs/18/boost-mobile-gold-coas...
So he is - must have missed him as I read through. Thanks.
I really love surfing on my back hand but I have always struggled to do so at Snapper....
Are there certain waves that just favour forehand? ... or am I just a gumby on my backhand?
Backhand tuberiding is one of the hardest things ive ever tried to do. Chipper.
Groundswell thank you for your comment i do agree it's a learning curve to tube ride backhand, however i actually pigdog pretty well, it's the speed transitions i think i struggle with...
Any tips...
No tips from me, i suck pumping backhand and speed transitions..if its pumping i usually ride a lid on rights that are barrelling. There have been a few exceptions though like north point but usually getting closeouts and no pumping.
if its 2-3 foot my round tail quad goes well for snaps etc backhand but i find it difficult to takeoff on slabby waves backhand so will switch to a lid. Check out Nathan Florences videos for tips on backhand surfing and someone elses i forget who.
Better still Sprout:
A day were everybody has to bodysurf it.
Its the perfect shape.
Yeeeew!
That would be sick! Even like the wedge where bodysurfers get it to themselves for a couple hours.
Some crazy , crazy perfect waves in there.
Still much prefer the surf I had on the same day.
honestly - this angle is missing the best bit. All of the water photogs were sitting mid bank, with lenses pointed up towards rainbow, where it was smaller. The other direction was a bit bigger and rounder. I enjoyed watching all of the muppets clump together while a few less of us had a bit more space. My count was 5 good barrels, 4 made in 2.5 hours, And no drop ins or yelling,
Was elsewhere somewhere along the east coast all this week and there really were just endlessly long runners all week long... sometimes smaller, occasionally pulsing but just endlessly running, at times barrelling for 100s of metres and makeable, at other times really playful with long tapered shoulders built for carving and other times just too quick, warp speed pedal to the metal material… A dream really
It was cool to see good surfers feeling they didn’t have to do too much. Plenty had high performance abilities:
but I’ll just cruise, get a tube if it presents itself, maybe do a hack, it’s a long wave, don’t want to fall off, no hurry.
Best surf clip I reckon I’ve ever seen. Angle sure, a big thing, but the light and the wave, things we are all familiar with, the cast etc. Hollow runners along a military sandbank. What better?
All doing that thing with setting up and being in the tube. I really enjoyed that.
Nice little 2-3 ft tubes, but you could not pay me to paddle out at superbank. That is not proper surfing, its just a competitive, aggressive hustle among posers and wankers. There are now police patrolling superbank and Duranbah because of all the surf rage that has occurred at those ridiculously overcrowded spots. The Gold Coast is a nightmare in and out of the water, a real snake pit. It used to be the place you would drive through as quickly as possible on the way to Byron, but that has now also been "gold-coasted". How I appreciate surfing at a remote spot on the Qld coast where there are usually only a few or no surfers out. I will no longer surf among crowds, which takes a lot of the pleasure out of surfing.
Is it true that even the photographers squabble amongst themselves?. funny stuff indeed, true paparazzi.
spent 9 months on the Goldie just before covid, surfed a lot with massive crowds. Came back to vic on one of the coldest days of the year dreading how i'd handle the cold after so long in board shorts, but first day was 5-6ft, 8 guys out and had more waves in 2 hours than I'd had in 2 months up there. AS good as their waves are, will put up with the cold any time (and the slightly lower quality) for low crowds and heaps of waves
That was insane!!! Just absolutely beautiful waves.
It's nice seeing regular blokes getting gems and beaming ear to ear.