Waves on the south coast but wind too.

Hello Friends,

On an impulse – and because the prospects looked good – my
surfrider foundation mate Paul and I pointed the car in a southerly direction last night. Our plan was to drive down to Milton, stay the night in the fabulous Commercial Hotel and get up early to see if we could beat the high tide and southerlies at Golf Course reef.

The swell’s faded overnight according to the buoy data, but it wasn’t anything like flat. We were seeing sets with wave faces easily into the two plus metre range.

At first it was fairly setty, but after an hour or so, we were seeing the big ones pretty regularly. Now before those of you trapped behind a desk far from a beach dissolve into envy, you need to know that this was not what could be called all-time Golf Course. The tide was stupid high, and the wind was pushing lots of chop in. The takeoff zone was shifting around quite a bit and that meant quite a lot of paddling and duck diving.

Sadly my little water camera decided it didn’t want to cooperate, so I wasn’t able to get any shots for you with it.

After a couple of hours we concurred that breakfast time had arrived. I’d scored a couple sort of okay waves and one mildly exciting one and Paul had racked up a respectable count given the challenging conditions. By 0830 the wind was going pretty well, and as I sit here overlooking Ulladulla’s absurdly picturesque little harbour, with another flat white inbound, I can see that the ocean beyond the headland is a great expanse of white horses.

We’re going to chill for awhile and let that tide drop before reviewing our options.

more later…