Sunday (micro) morning

Hello Friends,

Well, late last night the call was for gale force winds, but as of 0900 it was lightly offshore from the west around to the WNW. But that should change soon. There are storm force wind warnings for south of Ulladulla and we still have a gale forecast in Sydney. Here’s the Bureau’s synopsis:

A low pressure system off the far south coast of NSW will move north along the southern half of the coast during Sunday, before moving east away from the coast on Monday.

We’re supposed to get 34-45 kts of W-SW winds in Sydney today, and tomorrow it should still be blasting along 25-33 kts.

But the waves, you say, what about the waves?

At this stage, as the picture shows, it’s basically flat at Dee Why. The swell is now south and it’s a couple metres out at sea on average. The period setting is an okay 9 seconds too. But those offshores seem to be keeping anything surfable well clear of south corners like Dee Why. I’ll run out and have a look at the north ends in a sec, so check back later.

later…

0945: little things turning up for the mals stationed out the back.

Man, it is chilly out there. The shorts were maybe not the plan this morning. Went down to see if I could spot any south swell getting into Longy. Heaps of people on the beach for nippers and quite a few folk in the water considering.

Long wait for ones like this, but they

As expected, there is a little something showing from about the pole north to the bombies. It’s still quite inconsistent, but the wind is offshore, so when the chest high sets turn up, it looks okay – albeit rather fat and slow. Every now and then a larger set feathers on the outer bombies before fizzing out again, a sign I take it of the size still to come as the low gets to work.

Outlook for Sydney, according to the models, is for the swell to gradually push up over the next 24-36 hours. With luck we’ll start to see some reasonable size at south facing spots by tomorrow afternoon. Tuesday morning’s still looking like the pick of the week with the possibility of light winds early ahead of SE seabreezes later.

Go well with your day – and get up to some good on the way through.

Artificial reefs?

Who hasn’t watched perfect hundred metre long walls shutting down along a beach and thought ‘if only there was a reef…’? Artificial surfing reefs have recently bobbed up as a topic on our forums, so we thought we’d see what we could find in the way of interesting links on the topic.

If you’re not afraid of a bit of text, this page about Surfing and Artificial Surf Reefs offers a reasonably up to date rundown on the key issues involved. It mentions Narrowneck (see it on Coastalwatch), Cables, Bagarra and Pratte’s Reef in California.

Pratte’s ended up being a bust for various reasons, not least of which were the geo tech bags tearing. There’s a link to an FAQ (pdf) about the whole sorry business on Surfrider USA’s site.

According to a study entitled Narrowneck Reef: Seven Years of Monitoring (pdf) published last year in the journal Shore & Beach by Griffith University researchers, Narrowneck has been a success. The main issue seems to be that it isn’t as good as some may have hoped!

Cables Beach in WA is often credited with being the first artificial surf reef. It does work, sort of, according to this page from Life on Perth.com.

Over in NZ the Mount Maunganui reef project seems to have stalled (at least the home page hasn’t been updated in but even in its incomplete form, did create waves…

There seem to be any number of pipe dream reef projects in NZ, some of which are connected with an outfit called ASR Limited. In addition to Mt Maunganui, they have been involved with one at Opunake (that one seems to be on hold) and internationally with Weights Reef in Bournemouth UK. (The Weights Reef project seems to be falling behind schedule in a big way)

cforms contact form by delicious:days

Samoa Report for week 46 of 2008

WEEKLY   REPORTS  for    2008

Report No:   46-08

Period:           Monday 10^th to Sunday 16th Nov   

Monday.  High tide 4.03am &4.23pm. With the early high tide we had a dawnie out at Resorts. Really clean and glassy, waist to shoulder high on the sets, but really fun. Lefts and rights due to the peaky swell. Not many barrels but lots of faces for a few turns.

Tuesday.  High tide 4.50am & 5.09pm.  A south east wind had kicked up overnight and the small swell meant nowhere was going to be pumping Our two surf guest paddled out Resorts and surfed for about an hour but the wind was making it look a bit average, just great top be in 25 degree C water.

Wednesday. High tide 5.38am & 5.58pm. Early boat trip and Special K was first check, with a light nor west wind and a few shoulder high waves coming thru it looked nice. The crew of 3 guests and 1 guide surfed it from 6am till 9am and got a heap of good ones. Some barreling while the others were lined up for a few reo’s to be done. Crew stoked on their last surf in Samoa.

Thursday.  High tide 6.30am & 6.50pm.  With good waves yesterday they hit a boat trip again, but the swell had really died. After hunting around looking for somewhere to surf Pebbles looked the best bet due to the light south east wind. With only knee to waist high waves the new guests opted to snorkel around on the reef for a few hours and quite enjoyed it.

Friday.   High Tide 7.24am & 7.46pm.  Again the south east wind was up early so they headed to The Ocean Trenches for a snorkel tour. About 6pm 2 guests and a guide decided to go for a paddle out the front at resorts where they got a few rights that were shoulder high with a little wind and average for Samoa, but still a very fun surf.

Saturday. High tide 8.23am. Today it was back to sheet glass and Resorts was looking a treat. With shoulder high sets there were some good lefts and rights on offer and they surfed from 7am till 9.30am. It stayed glassy all day and they were back out for an arvo sesh. Straight offshore it looked even better than earlier with barrels and nice walls to race across. The crew happy after a day of good waves, surfing for the last hour of light.      

Sunday. High tide 9.28am. Almost identical to yesterday, just not as sunny. Sheet glass again and super clear water. Again lefts and rights and the crew made the most of the good conditions and surfed from 8am till about 12ish. Again Resorts was probably the pick of the shoulder high swell, a few Vailimas (beers) were had at the bbq night.

Photos   46a-08 @ 46b-08 A couple of turns on some clean lefts out @ Resorts

Cheers……………George

Same place, same time, dfferent surfer, Resorts, Samoa

Windy as, eh!

Wind is howling from the W directions still-the ENE swell is battered and gone and SLOWLY being replaced by a fresh and raw S swell. just starting to show in long period sets on those beaches open to the S-and it’s offshore. So, it’s bloody cold-but there’s a wave out there for those who wanna’ have a look, eh!

Really cold, really wet and nearly flat

Heading says it all. Tiny left at Tama if you are desperate and don’t weigh much. Small wave at Bondi but same as above.

Small

Beautiful looking day with the added bonus of offshore winds. Surfing today is best suited to the learners with wave height being knee high at best.Great day for the beach though.

Early riser report

Hello Friends,

Issued last night by the Bureau of Meterology

I’ll be along for a morning update in another hour or two. (I wrote this late last night, so my call is based on the data available then.) The Bureau hoisted a Gale Warning last night. They said that this morning should kick off with 34-45 kts of SW wind. That ought to push up a bit of swell for anyone unlucky enough to be at sea this morning. The underlying swell was out of the SSE at about 1 metre at 7 seconds last night.

By this morning it might begin to show some sign of an increase. But the real boost should happen as the low forms up offshore and starts slinging some size toward us in the afternoon. The problem is that the wind could hold that offshore if it keeps howling as the Bureau expects.

The forecast models last night were not showing anything of significance for the Sydney region. They were calling for short period, small, windswell. Instead, they reckon the real stuff won’t start getting in until Monday afternoon. The juice should then last into Wednesday, with Tuesday being the pick day…