Hello Friends,

Another slightly cool, but basically sunny and pretty day with light offshore to sideshores in Lennox Head for the morning session. Swell seemed to have perked slightly over yesterday and it was definitely cleaner, but the low tide shutdown issue still prevailed. It looked as though there were much longer rides to be had at the point, but it was from a tightly defined and well populated take-off zone too. So, making that old calculation (ie, do we surf crowded and better or uncrowded and worse), we again opted for the choice we’d made yesterday.

There were a few head high wave faces and a few makeable ones, so after a couple of hours, we both had logged at least a few reasonable waves. The water was as warm and clear as yesterday, but the sets had a little more oomph so paddling out had its moments.

Outlook for the swell up and down the east coast continues to be for a steady decline and my expectation is that tomorrow could well be the last of our opportunities for a wave on this excursion. Oh well, at least we didn’t totally strike out!

Looking ahead to next week, the models are showing the lull in action continuing for at least a week. At this stage the indications are that there will be a fair amount of southern ocean energy, but for the next 7 days at least it’ll be deflected toward New Zealand by high pressure. A good week for keeping promises perhaps.

Go well!

Hello Friends,
Another north coast wrap for our evening visitors.

This morning dawned bright and clear and rather cool on the far north coast. We didn’t rush out the door, figuring that it might be a plan to let the school kids and workers have their go first. Started by checking Lennox and discovered pretty much in line with expectations, that it had weakened overnight. Lots of people were on the very top of the point where waves were still chest to shoulder high on sets. Some of the better ones went a ways, but mostly it kinda looked like a good beachbreak in terms of ride length. And down the point toward the trees it was too small to attract any takers. We’re very familiar with the entry/exit from Lennox and given the crowd and wave quality, we decided it wasn’t worth the risk of getting pranged.

So, around to Boulder we went in search of something a bit more attractive. When we pulled up the carpark was full and there were half a dozen people standing on the headland, watching. Seeing all the cars and people, we thought there might be some waves of interest – albeit crowded.

In fact, there were only 5 people in the water. So the rest of the carpark musta been fishers. It was extremely inconsistent and weak looking. Again, it basically looked like a beachbreak peak with a rocky shore. Oh well.

So, back to Lennox and out to the reefs for a semi-peaky section that was delivering the odd quick little right in the waist to chest high range. Only the two of us out, so it was definitely worth doing but you wouldn’t call it epic or anything.

Water was pleasant, though not particularly warmer than Sydney was last week. Lotsa people up this way are in steamers too. It’s probably those chilly morning winds.

Outlook up this way tomorrow is for the swell to drop another cog, so not sure where we’ll end up. It looks a bit more hopeful for those of you in Sydney.

Have a good one!

Hello Friends,

The plan looked good on paper: get up early and drive north from Sydney in search of a reef or a point to hold the solid south swell.

The drive north and search parts came off without a hitch. Sadly, Huey decided not to play nice.

First stop was Saltwater at Old Bar where I figured there might be a chance of the swell wrapping around the point on account of the projected 10-12 sec period. Got there at 1100 to find a few cars in the carpark, offshore breeze, clear blue skies, reasonable size south swell… but… it was just too south for the place and the period wasn’t long enough to refract the waves around cleanly. Instead they were pushing north and spilling wide for the most part. After seeing one wave get ridden any distance in half an hour, we decided to continue on north to see if it was getting into Crescent Head or thereabouts.

I was a little concerned that it might not be wrapping there either but since we were heading north, we figured it was worth the time to take a look.

Unfortunately it turned out to be, well, not to put too fine a point on it – flat.

We went back toward Plomer to see what was what down that way (on the off chance that maybe the south was getting in). Struck out again…

I know it wants a touch of east at least, but I thought there might be a chance that just maybe there’d be a little something mal-able at Scotts Head.

Once again, we wuz skunked. By now the tide was really high and while you could see a bit of swell north along the beach between there and Nambucca Heads, it was utterly micro at Scotts. Not a sausage.

Undeterred, we pushed northward yet again.

Checking in at Nambucca, we had a look at the town beachy and were pleasantly surprised to see a little size showing (well, more than we’d seen since Saltwater) but the high tide wasn’t helping the fragile set up and the kids on bodyboards were having to work for their scraps.

Running out of light, we decided for one last desperate roll of the dice. I’ve never surfed there, but have heard that Trapdoors can be good if the sand is in the right spot and the swell angle right. So, off to Sawtell we went.

Huey was having none of it. The set up looked okay, but the swell was still looking disorganised and kinda floppy. Oh, and no one was in the water.

So, there you have it. A surf story with no surf. But hey, those of us who’ve been doing this for awhile know all about Huey’s little japes.

Still smilin’! Maybe tomorrow will come together… ya never know…