Postcard from Sawtell

Barry, aka The Beach Defender of HPFM was in Sawtell this morning. He tells me he grabbed the shot in a rare sunny break between the showers…. looks pretty tasty…

He said there were about half a dozen in the water and that sets were into the shoulder high range. Lucky pups!

Postcard from Tim

Surf film shooter Tim Bonython sent us this from yesterday at Kirra. Cyclone Vania may have been pretty tame down this way, but look at those lines… and just imagine if they were makeable when they hit the point… there’d be a zillion keen surfers all over ‘em!

Postcard: Eukai Beach yesterday

Tim Bonython’s on the North Shore for the start of the season and he sent us a little postcard…

Postcard from Redhead

Hello Friends,

Had an opportunity to tag along on a run to lovely Newcastle this morning. Didn’t take the board because I figured it would be pretty tiny. And it was along the steel city’s beaches as it turned out.

On the way back, we went out to Redhead for a look. I’ve never checked this particular beach before. It’s a nice set up too. There were a few folks in the water chasing some waist high little crunchers. Definitely bigger than anything we saw in Newcastle and a few of them looked positively fun it has to be said.

Here’s a snap of a snap…

Postcard from Boomerang

To be filed under really annoying messages from friends who could go on surfari when you couldn’t…

Mid North Coast tally ho!:

The ENE swell continues to hang in there. We just surfed a left for a
couple of hours in the Boomerang Beach area (near an iconic headland and
an easy paddle out). Very fun 3-4′waves in perfect conditions:
uncrowded, offshores, sunny, warm water, dolphins, bikini girls on the
beach – you know the story.
Probably gone tomorrow – so its a case of ‘carpe diem’.
Wish you were here.
Cheers
P

Yeah, well… well we had a really productive work meeting, so there! Grumble.

Postcard from Rincon

This attractive, rather painterly snap was taken by my good mate Paul with his phone while standing at Rincon a few hours ago. Too bad he’s off to Hawaii now because Southern California is just about to light up big time thanks to some very serious winter swell. Mind you, it’s not exactly going to be puny out there!

Postcard from Clovelly

Was over in the eastern suburbs to do an interview for my mag. Got their early and went for a quick snorkle at Clovelly (where I’ve never been before). What a nice setup – even if there’s no chance of a wave.

La Conchita sesh

Hello Friends,
Swell perked a little over on this side of the pond. Got into the chest high range at some spots in northern Ventura county, but the tide was fighting it every step of the way. Water was exceptionally warm for this late in the year. I reckon it was pushing 19 at La Conchita where my pal Tim and I got a few waves on the dropping tide. La Conchita is yet another right point set up. It’s maybe 3 km south of Rincon and features an interesting top of the point take off zone under a long pier that runs out to an artificial island where they drill for oil (California is a major oil producing state still).

Anyway, we were messing about down the point from there. Waves were pretty soft and gutless despite the period getting up above the 10 sec mark. Really woulda been better on a mal than the 7S fishy I was using. Anyway, after we got outta the water, I went up to the top of the point and grabbed a few shots to share.

To round things off California style, my pal Guy and I went into Santa Barbara to the Soho cafe to watch a couple of amazing surf guitar players, Paul and Gil who gig under the name The Duotones. They have a funky little website where you can check out their stuff. They played all the biggies from the surf music era (Pipeline, Walk don’t run, Apache, Sleepwalk, Mr Moto, Baja, Perfidia, etc etc). Brilliant stuff.

Getting a little cover before being crunched in front of the rocks at La Conchita, CA.

One stands up on the inside near where your correspondent was surfin'

You can shoot the pier to get into this section at La Conchita.

Tiny ones at the ‘con

Hello Friends,
Just another little postcard for ya from sunny southern California. Sounds like our weather’s not dissimilar to Sydney’s. “Surf” seems a pretty close match as well. A couple pals and I would not be put off, so we grabbed longboards and headed down to Rincon. Only three people in the water when we got there – for very good reason. Sets were struggling to get into the knee high range. But, as with places like the Pass, even when it’s really small, you can catch and ride them for a really long way. I reckon the critical part on my average wave was a zone about 10cm from top to bottom. If you could set the rail in there, your plank would just slide along smoothly. Turn off the line even slightly and you’d be sinking out or getting caught behind.

Water was really warm for here. Probably around the 18-20C mark and air temps were around 25. It was the first time I’ve been on a mal in awhile and it was a hoot. Anyway, here are a few snaps…

Guy stepping up on another ultra tiny one (it probably went 50 metres)

Me & the boys heading down the path for a sesh at Rincon.

View from the deck: Rincon as small as it can be surfed.

heat is on in southern California

Hello Friends,

Looks as though Sydney should have southerly conditions this morning, at 0545 there was 10-15kt of south wind and the swell was an into the useful range 2 metres at 9 seconds apart from the south. Semi-protected south corners ought to have at least something rideable. Should clear up as the day goes along and the wind is set to swing through the easterly quarters to the NE this afternoon late.

Looks as though this is as big as it gets for then next week. The models are showing a very brief long period pulse around Tuesday, so you never know, it might get interesting for a few hours at least…

A morning shower or two, chiefly near the coast. Fine, partly cloudy
afternoon. Light to moderate southwest winds tending southeast, then
northeast in the evening.
Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Sunday until midnight: Wind: SW/SE 10/15 knots, tending E/NE 5/10 knots in the evening.Sea: about 1 metre. Swell: S/SE 1.5 metres.
Monday: Wind: NW to 10 knots, tending NE 10/15 knots in the afternoon.Sea: to 1 metre. Swell: S/SE 1 to 1.5 metres.
Tuesday: Wind: NW/NE 10 knots, freshening to 15/20 knots from NE during afternoon.

Straight outta SoCal
Got some fun little west swell waves at Pitas yesterday. As the tide dropped, the top of the kilometre long right point started to fire up with some zippery waist to chest high plus energy. I personally scored a number of 200+ metre rides and I saw quite a few that were up to twice as far. Not super crowded either. The weird thing is that although it’s now well into autumn, the temperatures are close to the height of summer. At some places it was up to 38 yesterday.

Here’s a snap I took from the water…

Pitas section about to standup and hone for a couple hundred metres.