Watch: Early Season Sunset Beach
This one hits me in the feels.
Early in the North Shore season, a bluebird day at Sunset, enjoyable mid-range waves, and a drone doing its best to transport me there.
I spy a few crew on ten foot Brewers, Baby Mike Ho mixing it up on a shorter board, Barron Mamiya laying rail, one of the Beschens - Shane maybe? - cutting a few turns short, there's Jamie Sterling riding the same colourway he was riding fifteen years ago, Billy Kemper the same from five years ago, and a gaggle of gals getting their share out on the north peak.
Time to book a ticket.
Comments
To be honest, I much preferred watching that to CT surfers riding it in the comps.
People riding big boards, small boards, taking off out the back, riding across the saddle.
It was much better utilised as a recreational wave than as a professional venue.
100% agree. Its a beautiful sight.
Theres a vid getting around on youtube of laniakea from last week too that i think you'd also enjoy FR.
yep, like every break.
Yeah looks very doable and fun which I would never normally equate with Sunset.
Yeah looks very doable and fun which I would never normally equate with Sunset.
Dream waves. Oh to sit outside on my 8'6 DS...
Plenty of kooky wipeouts and average surfers - good to see a bit of that reality every now and then.
It's on my bucket list.
Good commitment from the guy at 3.02
One of those waves that must surf better than it looks on the screen.
It definitely does.
Really exciting drop then it feels like snowboarding down a mountain.
Love the overview shots too, gives an idea as to what sort of general setup the North Shore.
Yeah being out there on an 8'6" would be dreamy.
Seems like you would need a pretty specific board to surf that place well.
Something with length to paddle in but also pretty easy to turn. Maybe it's all in the rail?
Some of the bigger boards look pretty cumbersome and the smaller more performance boards looked like the rails couldn't quite penetrate the water.
I'm on a big board bender at the moment, so a bit biased, but I thought the big boards looked just right.
As Steve said, like big mountain skiing/snowboarding.
One of my favourites, packs way more punch than it looks, like SW Vicco with more power.
7'6'' for me.
Had to compete with Owl on a 13'4' back in the 90's, so sit inside and underneath and be prepared to get dragged back to the beach (underwater), board shorts around the ankles!!
It definitely looks like a wave that suits a bigger board and wait for the right section to appear. So nice to watch an average day with heaps of people giving it a go
As much as I would have preferred to see the same waves via well crafted telephoto lens land footage; the waves and the surfers riding them were a dream-scape. Heaven.
That was really good, no shortage of crew going for it. Liked the scale of it all, the big boards too., and the straight, down-the-line approach some of the surfers had, maybe that the wave demands. Is it difficult to cleanly get your rail out of a top turn there?
One of those "almost" north swell days.
And Laniakea's a disorganized mess, and Log Cabin's is just a little bit off and even more mean-spirited than it usually is, and Rocky Point is hopeless, and Pipeline does not even exist, and so everybody's out there surfing Sunset.
And this video is one of the best I've ever seen. It wants to transport you out there on a day that seems unthreatening, almost safe, doable.
And there's a slight disorganization to the swell.
And it's just this big teddy bear of a soft slopy thing.
Like some kind of giant green pillow or something.
And it's not properly sizable, and the north angle wants it to cap over and then kind of fizzle out as the wall stretches out there in front of you forever, and some of 'em are letting people all the way across, and it's crowded, but somehow there's still all this ridiculous amount of open expanse to fly across the way you fly when you're having a dream about flying, and it's just as self-contradictory as hell, and it's laughing at you, and you're laughing with it at yourself, and here comes another one, and which way is it gonna shift this time, and sonofabitch, it's coming right to you...
...and you're in, and the drop is a clean one, followed by an ever-so-satisfying nice long carving bottom turn, coming out of it at speed, and you're laughing along with it, and the crowd doesn't interfere, and it kind of goes soft for a bit, and you see it walling up out there in front of you, and you're flying FAST, oh so fast, even through the soft part, and the sun is shining and it's gorgeous to see it sparkle on the water, and then all of a sudden it rises up in front of you without sensible warning, and before you have time to react, the bottom has gone completely square, and the lip has become thick and menacing, and in the blink of an eye, it DEMOLISHES you, and thrashes the holy hell out of you, and once it has, it instantly goes back to that ever so non-threatening softness, backed off, even, and it continues to laugh along, and you come to the surface after a PHENOMENAL beating, and you look around, and you realize...
It's just one of those "almost" north swell days, and it's it's not properly sizable, and the damn thing just kicked your ass a split second after you were laughing along with it, thinking you were doing fine.
And you paddle straightaway right back out there for another one.
yeeeww.
Got in a nutshell McL! I'll NEVER forget the absolute flogging that place dishes out, even on a friendly sized day but, as you say, you paddle straightaway right back out there for another one.
Nick Carroll?
Nice visualisation. Took me there.
Well that comment just made my day! Thanks
Very kind words. All of you. I am humbled. My utmost thanks and appreciation. My day is made. And a fair bit of the beyond that, too.
Well said. You took me along for the ride.
So good
wow to the footage and the comments above, loved how it showed the normal crew with big boards giving it a crack
Really bloody miss that place. Not perfect but one of my favourite waves I’ve ever surfed. This video does a good job of demonstrating why it’s so hard to lay a nice clean carve on it… you get propelled with so much speed out of the sections that you don’t even know what to do with yourself, normally you’re just hanging on like you’ve bombed a big hill on a tiny skateboard. By the time you realise, the opportunity is all over. The tubes are tricky too. I never knew whether it was going to open properly or not, and when it didn’t, that lip felt like an atomic bomb to the head, with 3 truckie straps tightened around your whole body. I’ll never forget the force of the waves there, even when they were only 3-4 foot. I rode a 7’2. Was enough sometimes but normally wasn’t. I remember thinking about 8’4 seemed like the ticket.
How good! A highly relatable video showcasing all that’s good in surfing (for a change) sunshine, anticipation, raw exposed ocean not resembling anything mechanical and rails just rails. Loved reading all these posts too, felt like a conversation instead of a competition for a change. Happy Sunday y’all!
And no wind.
This looks fun..
Loved it all,,from the opening shots of the guy timing his paddle to those big open faces that bring to mind a great day at some south west Victoria reef until you notice the speed and the way sunshine and blue water can it make look like it’s your friend before you notice that extra juice. It’s got me excited to surf and any film that shows a pig on a leash (2min45sec) gets my thumbs up. Real surfing makes over edited pros look like the unattainable advertising gimmick that got boring long ago, not to mention the way that the ego can Cloke the Stoke.. real surfing does it for me.
Loved that Laniakea video, Udo. What a wave.
Stu, and others that have spent time on the North Shore, what’s the trick finding accommodation?
Been a while for me. I went a few years ago but stayed at Sunset Church.
Generally you just lob in at the backpackers. Book one of the apartments across the road at Three Tables if you don't want to share a cabin with a tweaker from Palm Springs. Then just ask around. It's an economy that's largely based on short stay accommodation, so it's not difficult to figure it out. You can get things sorted in a day or two.
Thanks,Stu.
Will make some more enquiries. Super keen for a week in March or early April. Surprisingly good flights from NZ.
tbh I could never quite come to grips with Laniakea.
Loved Jockos though.
Channel Bottom Guns not common in Hawaii Stu ?
Not at all. You could spend a few days walking the Haleiwa board stores before you come across a channel bottom gun. They're just not part of Hawaii's surfing DNA the way they are here.
What makes a good Sunset gun? Is it your standard modern high volume gun, or some special sauce?
More Laniakea. Will have to go in the not distant future.
Thankfully it reminds me of home.
Dreamy. Makes you think ‘oh yeah, I could paddle out there’. Then likely get my arse kicked.
I can feel how warm the water is. Just started body surfing in boardies in Sydney and it’s as cold as I can ever remember a November.
What I do know is that Kelly doesn’t like Sunset, and Sunset doesn’t like Kelly.