Grey morning, warming up later

Hello Friends,

Dee Why looking rather sleepy this morning at 0700

The best news of the day is that the folks at Manly Hydraulic Labs have stuck some new batteries in the Sydney waverider buoy. That means after several weeks, we’re once again getting live data about sea conditions offshore. Sadly, this morning, the data isn’t exactly inspiring. There’s about a metre of SE windswell, but it’s only six seconds apart. So, the marginal conditions down at Dee Why may safely be extrapolated to include all of Sydney.

But don’t feel too hard done by. It’s basically the same story up and down the coast of NSW and SE Qld.

Surf school is in session, but Prof. Huey is still in his office apparently.

The marine forecast is calling for light and variable winds this morning to turn NW to NE this afternoon and get up to 13-18kts. But there’s no prospect of any improvement to the surf conditions. Indeed, the indications are that tomorrow will be no better.

However…

There is hope for a little south pulse this weekend. It doesn’t look likely to get very big (shoulder high maybe) and the quality will not be too fabulous – if the Bureau is right about the wind call.

Southy looks the go for the robo-surfer.

The weatherpersons are currently predicting S-SE wind of 20-30 kts early, easing slightly as the day goes along. So, it sounds like your favourite semi-protected south corner will be the best chance for a wave.

BTW, I did the radio surf report this morning with Wendy Harmer on ABC 702. Here’s what it sounded like…

Don talks surf this morning with Wendy Harmer on 702 ABC radio

Go well!

TG’s Forecast

Surf Forecast issued Thursday 18 December 2008: seven day outlook for Sydney:

Seven more sleeps till Santa comes!… Or only three till he visits Avalon Beach Surf Club on a warm up run for the Nippers.

He knows who’s been naughty and nice. The A Grade Morons who left broken glass and a smoldering fire (from the old boys bench seat) in the middle of the beach last Saturday night/Sunday morning are clearly in the former group.

Santa thinks it would be nice if anyone who might know the identity of these Losers could let Mona Vale Police know, so that they can be counselled about bad mannered, anti social acts and maybe have worthwhile lives as human beings in the future … People walk barefoot on the beach.

In the meantime… there should be a few waves around leading up to Christmas and even on Christmas day at certain beaches.

Friday: coming up from the South – say 1-2 metres and more at places that like dead South swell.

Saturday: 1-2 metres, dropping to around 1 metre South.

Sunday: about 1 metre or so South East.

Monday: Ditto at first, then coming up a bit more East South East.

Tuesday: in the 1-2 metre range North East/ South.

Wednesday: around the 1 metre mark at places that like dead South swell.

Thursday: Ditto! Happy Christmas!

Water temp’s around 20 degrees.

Stay safe in the surf… and drive carefully if you’re going away.

NRMA holiday driving tips here..

http://www.mynrma.com.au/cps/rde/xchg/mynrma/hs.xsl/7581.htm

Happy and Safe Christmas to all!

TG.

Weather from the Bureau:

Forecast for Friday
Fine. Lengthy sunny periods. Light west to southwest winds, becoming moderate to fresh south to southeast in the afternoon, gusty along the coast.
Precis: Fine. Lengthy sunny periods.

City: Min: 17 Max: 23 Parramatta: Min: 17 Max: 25
Terrey Hills: Min: 16 Max: 23 Penrith: Min: 17 Max: 27
Liverpool: Min: 16 Max: 25 Richmond: Min: 15 Max: 26

UV Alert: 8:40 am to 5:10 pm, UV Index predicted to reach 13 [Extreme]

Saturday Chance shower.

City: Min: 15 Max: 21
West: Min: 12 Max: 21

Sunday Fine. Lengthy sunny periods

City: Min: 16 Max: 23
West: Min: 13 Max: 25

Monday Chance shower.

City: Min: 16 Max: 25
West: Min: 13 Max: 27

Tuesday Chance shower.

City: Min: 18 Max: 27
West: Min: 15 Max: 29

Wednesday Shower or two.

City: Min: 19 Max: 25
West: Min: 17 Max: 26

Thursday Chance morning shower.

City: Min: 18 Max: 23
West: Min: 16 Max: 27

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Strong Wind Warning.
Thursday until midnight: Wind: N/NE 13/18 knots.Sea: about 1.5 metres.Swell: SE/NE about 1 metre. Isolated thunderstorms.
Friday: Wind: W/SW 15/20 knots, turning S/SW 20/30 knots, and reaching 25/33 knots offshore during the afternoon. Sea: 1 to 2 metres rising 2 to 3 metres. Swell: SE 1 to 2 metres.
Saturday Outlook: Wind: S/SE 20/30 knots easing to 15/20 knots.
Sunday Outlook: Wind: SE/NE 10/20 knots.

Massive Mavs

Late November and they get a bit of swell at Mavericks…

Want a free Noosa Festival of Surfing DVD?

Hey RealSurfers,

How about an extra little stocking stuffer? I’ve got 10 free DVDs to give away today and tomorrow. They’re a roundup from the last Noosa Festival of Surfing. As you know, GSI sponsors it and RealSurf likes to go and hang out in Noosa for the week (we will be up in Noosa again this coming March). NFoS is the longest running surf festival in Autstralia.

So, if you’d like to look at some cool longboarding, tandem surfing, standup paddleboards and shortboards too, here’s how you get one:

1. Email admin@realsurf.com with the headline “I want a Noosa Festival of Surfing DVD”

2. In the email, tell me the headline of one article on RealSurf.com home under “Top Stories”

3. Tell me your name and a postal address to send it to.

First 10 with correct, complete replies get DVDs. I’ll post an update when they’re gone. So . . . I’m waiting for your emails now.

Shari

Editor’s choice from our mailbag

Your correspondent has been spending too much time below decks tinkering with the engine, so it was about time he put in appearance on the bridge. We have a bit of a backlog in the way of suggested links, so I’m calling this round ‘from the mailbag’.

Cardboard boards? Sounds mad doesn’t it? Rod D. sent us this link, and apparently it’s at the prototyping stage – but the real deal nonetheless. And Mike Sheldrake, the brains behind the concept, has actually built a few of these strangely beautiful looking objects. Check out the slideshow to see how he built one (takes awhile to download).

For some reason I find the idea of surfing in New York intriguing. There’s actually quite a surf scene there from the look of it. Frank D. sent me a link to the cool and rather folksy New York Longboarder. When I checked it out, the waves were in the waist high range at Long Beach – better than in Sydney!

If you haven’t come across the excellent mag Kurungabaa before, I highly recommend checking this site and getting your mitts on a copy. To quote from their about page, “Kurungabaa publishes diverse genres including poetry, fiction, reflective and scholarly essays, memoirs, review essays, and interviews. Four pages each issue are made available for a photo essay or series of art reproductions by a single photographer or artist. All work undergoes anonymous peer review.” (Thanks for the tip Larry!)

We have another longboarding site for your amusement. Suggested by the webmaster Arsen B., Longboard the World actually covers off both long and shortboarding in Florida. Kinda fun to check out the waves they get in Kelly Slater’s home state. Pretty slick design too…

Okay, most experienced surfers will pretty much know how to clean a board, but this little how-to page on santangelosurfboards.com.au, is a useful step-by-step for folks new to the sport. Thanks to Dylan for this one.

cforms contact form by delicious:days

MALDIVES – TRIBUTE TO TONY HUSSEIN – DISCOVERER OF HIDDEN TREASURE IN THE MALDIVES

Story by DOUG LEES, from the latest issue of Surfing World Magazine

Tony inside bowl - Honkys late 70s

On 27 May this year, Anthony “Tony Hussein” Hinde, the surfer who discovered the waves of the Maldives, died surfing the wave he found in 1973 — the wave where, he said his “soul became complete”.

Having ridden a wave to the end, Tony did not get back on his board and was spotted floating in the water. Despite the best efforts of fellow surfers and the local doctor he could not be revived. Tony had suffered a sudden heart attack as he finished that wave.

Tony’s story is one of the truly great surf fairytales. He was the 20 year old from Australia who went on a surfing adventure at a time when many of the world’s best surf breaks were yet to be discovered. A shipwreck on a deserted island in the middle of the Indian Ocean landed him on the then-unknown Maldives, where he found his own nirvana and made it his life and livelihood.

Tony with the first surfboard ever ridden in Maldives.

In 1973, Tony was traveling with his good friend Mark Scanlon on a surfing trip from Indonesia to Africa. By December they had come as far as Sri Lanka, where, despite neither having any sailing experience, they talked their way onto a 56-foot ketch bound for Africa. The captain’s plan was to set sail and let the current push them north, but the December currents drove them south towards the Maldives.

On the third night, when they thought they were in the middle of the ocean, the boat was hit by a four-foot wave. Luckily they managed to surf the boat in to the deserted shore – Tony Hussein had landed on the Maldives. In the morning they realised they were “in a beautiful lagoon, surrounded by a beautiful reef and covered by an equally beautiful sky”.

Tony doing a cutback at Pasta Point.

Despite the captain deciding not to stay, Tony and Mark salvaged the boat and sailed it around the islands – at the time one of the most deserted places on earth. One day on this journey of discovery they rounded a headland where “there was a wrapping, blue, perfect left-hander, offshore wind, six feet, breaking off a deserted island with no other surfer for a thousand miles”. As luck would have it, there was a right-hander just as perfect on the other side of the island. After just one session there, Tony decided this was where he wanted to live.

Tony sailing his dhoni.

Captain Tony

The Maldives opened to tourists in 1972 but by December 1973, Tony estimated, there had only been “maybe 100 people through”. Tony and Mark were the first to arrive on their own and the local government agency didn’t know what to do with them. There were no guest houses in the Maldives, so they billeted with locals until Tony rented a house, for seven dollars a month for a year.

“I was 20 and thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” he said.

From 1974 to 1984 Tony and selected friends surfed the Maldives area by themselves. They would simply walk to the end of the island and paddle out or sail in Tony’s small dhoni, a single-sailed local transport vessel, to other islands nearby. They would leave their boards in the jungle and sail back and forth.

Ton in a bottom turn.

If they saw another yacht sailing by they would belly the waves straight in and hide in the bush. Tony gave the waves he’d discovered names, by which they are now widely known. He originally named both the left and right breaks Sultans, but later changed the left to Honky’s after his nickname Honky Fats Waller.

In 1984, Tony got his first outboard motor, mounted on the back of his dhoni. This was a major advancement after ten years of sailing and poling between islands and in and out of lagoons. In the Maldives Tony found personal as well as surfing nirvana, converting to Islam in 1977. He said his conversion was a “way of thanking Allah for guiding me to the Maldives and for the good fortune I’d had there”. He also liked the fact that the people of the Maldives were like Polynesian Muslims, a more casual, but very respectful sort of Islam. “They respect the religion here but theyíre not hardcore about it,” he said. In 1983 his naturalisation was completed when he married a local Maldivian, Zulfa, with whom he had a son and a daughter.

Young Tony and Zulfa

It’s estimated that only about ten different white men had surfed Honky’s up until 1984 – now that’s a well kept secret. But in the mid-eighties, more surfers arrived through the introduction of friends. Tony said he’d always known that one day the Maldives would be exposed to the world and thought he would open a surf travel company. So, in 1989, in partnership with good friend and surfer Ian Lyon, Atoll Adventures was begun.

Ian and Tony met in Arugam Bay, Sri Lanka in 1980, but it was several years before Tony let Ian in on his secret – the surf in the Maldives – and then it was with some urgency. Tony wrote to Ian saying that, due to a change in the laws in the Maldives, if he was to come surfing there, he had to get there before May 1984. Ian arrived soon after receiving the letter and had two month’s of perfect surf with Tony.

Ian describes Tony as one of the most interesting people he has ever known, a man he admired and loved as much as a brother. He says that first trip was one of the best experiences of his life. ”Staying in this isolated country of tiny islands with a culture and people unlike any others I had experienced. Surfing perfect waves with only a few friends and getting to know Tony really well, understanding and appreciating just how amazing his life of the past ten years had been and being part of an incredible secret.”

Together, Tony and Ian introduced surfers to the ìincredible secret. In the early years of the business, Ian says, they had a hard time even convincing people that there was surf in the Maldives. People would ring and abuse them. There’s no surf in the Maldives, they would say, accusing them of running an imaginary surf camp.

Tony and Boppa

Now, Atoll Adventures is the leading surf travel company to the area and the resort they pioneered on Pasta Point has become the most popular surf location in the Maldives.

Tony often said he would spend the rest of his life in the Maldives and this is exactly what he did.

In an earlier issue of Surfing World (SW 299), Tony said: “I have been very happy here, happier than I ever thought possible. Again I want to thank Allah for all that he has given me. I have lived a lucky life, a dream life, in my years in the Maldives. My only regret is that Simon Anderson didn’t invent the thruster 15 years earlier.”

Tony’s wife of 25 years, Zulfa, died in January 2008 while undergoing treatment for Leukemia at Wollongong Hospital. He is survived by his son Ashley (23) and daughter Mishal (15). Ashley has deferred his university course in Sydney to return to the Maldives to attend to family affairs and learn everything about the operations of Atoll Adventures. Mishal is at boarding school in Brisbane.

Tony and Zulfa

Cronulla by Aquasea Wetsuit Repairs

Another top day, alas still no surf, 1footers at best, good for a swim or boogie, not much for boardies. Don’t forget the slip slop slap.
WIND: WNW at 10kph. WATER TEMP: 20 degrees.
FORECAST: Chance of a few showers or thunderstorms in the afternoon or evening. Partly cloudy. Light to moderate west to northwest winds and local afternoon coastal seabreezes.
MAX AIR TEMP TODAY: 29-33 degrees.
SWELL: ESE .8m-1.5m at 6 seconds.
TIDES: HIGH: 12:35 LOW: 06:20
WINDSURFERS: Good conditions later today.
BOAT DIVING: OK sea conditions outside, vis around 12m+ on the TUGGERAH and Kelloe, 12m+ at Barons Hut, thanks to www.seatamerdive.com Sydney Scuba Diving Boat Charter and Ian Griffiths “Griffiti”.
SHORE DIVING: 4-5 metres vis at Oak Park. 3-4 metres at Shiprock.
WETSUIT REPAIRS at Aquasea, Sydney. 02.95404774 for wetty and wettie repairs contact Lesley for a quick turn around, zippers tears cuts and all alterations.
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MonA ValE

It’s pretty good conditions for a swim today, maybe a longboard would be good too!

Huey’s takin hols

Nup, ain’t doin it at Dee Why this morning. After Monday’s big blast the surf’s gone back to sleep again. You’d be hard pressed to catch anything out there at the moment unless you got a big ole fat mal or similar. Dead flat on the Point and about knee high up the beach and at Longy. Cheers, Rob