Only a tiny little line showing at Dee Why.

Hello Friends,

Still going sideways where the lack of surf’s concerned. Another beautiful morning with clear skies and a faint offshore breeze. But there’s not much more than a metre of 6s period windswell out at sea, so absolutely nothing is getting into Dee Why. There is no real prospect of improvement for today that I can see (please feel free to prove me wrong Huey!) and from the MHL buoy data, it looks as though these dire conditions prevail up and down the east coast.

The WAMs are currently showing a relatively large area of fetch developing south of Tassie in the next day or so. On current reckoning it looks as though the brunt of the energy is going to push up along the west coast of NZ. However, they also seem to be indicating that we could benefit to a modest extent thanks to some very long period component that’s expected to arise. It’ll mostly be offshore from the look of things, and it’ll probably hit harder north of Sydney, but I’m hoping for some juicy chest high plus south swell from around Thursday and lasting into the early part of the weekend.

The models are really jumping around day to day, so my confidence level is moderate rather than high at this stage.

Have yourself a brilliant Tuesday!

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Tuesday until midnight: Wind: W/SW 13/18 knots easing to 10/15 knots during the morning before W/SW 13/18 knots in the eveningSea: 1 to 1.5 metres. Swell: S about 1 metre.
Wednesday: Wind: W/SW 8/13 knots inshore, 13/18 knots offshore.Sea: 1 to 1.5 metres. Swell: S/SW about 1 metre.
Thursday: Wind: S/SW 5/15 knots tending NE inshore in afternoon.

Cold wind whistling across tiny sets at midday.

Hello Friends,

Had to run an errand around lunchtime, so I stopped by Long Reef to see if I could detect any sign of the expected swell. There were a few bods in the water, but the wind was icy and strong, and worse, the waves were about as small as it’s possible to surf. It’s a metre out at sea from the south and the period’s decreased to a touch under 6 seconds.

The only hopeful sign has been an increase in the period from 6 to nearly 8 seconds at the Eden buoy even as the swell down there has gradually risen from around a metre yesterday to a couple metres now.

On the current set of readings I think it’s safe to say that we won’t be getting much of anything before nightfall in the Sydney region. There might possibly be the odd forerunner set, but I think I’ll be keeping the powder dry for tomorrow morning. That said, I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on proceedings and will update if I spot anything of interest. Maybe Hendo’s call will be better than mine on this one!

Looks as though we’ll have pretty windy conditions to kick off with tomorrow, but with luck as the day goes along, it’ll throttle back to something a bit more reasonable.

Here’s the Bureau’s call:

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Gale warning.
Wednesday until midnight: Wind: W 25/35 knots, reaching 35/40 knots offshore. Turning SW during the morning. Close inshore winds W 20/25 knots early morning.Sea: 2.5 to 4 metres. Swell: SE about 1 metre, increasing to S 3 to 4 metres tonight.
Thursday: Wind: S/SW 25/35 knots, easing to 20/30 knots later. Sea: 2.5 to 3.5 metres.Swell: S 3 to 4 metres.
Friday: Wind: SW 10/20 knots turning W’ly 5/15 knots

The oily rag we run this site on is pretty dry this week, so I’m going to experiment with a sort of tip-jar concept. Below you should see a little form that allows you to buy us a symbolic cup of coffee. It offers the security of paypal and I’ve set the amount options into what I hope is the affordable range. Been a long time since we’ve done any fundraising, so I wonder if any of you good folk will feel inclined to participate. Naturally I’m interested in any thoughts you may have re this sort of thing.

1040pm: no one will read this I imagine… but MHL is spiking up. Latest shows south swell building toward 2 metre mark and average period at 11 seconds! Looking extremely good for waves in the morning…

Hello Friends,

Went for a wander with the test camera from Sony (the a900) around dusk. Headed down to Longy to see if I could find any pictures. Got a couple (see below) and of course had a chance to watch the waves as Huey dimmed the lights on another day. I was keen to see if there was any sign of a change to the exceedingly tiny conditions.

And I believe there was. Maybe I’m being overly hopeful, given that the swell is south and averaging barely a metre at 6 seconds apart…. however…. the Sydney MHL buoy is showing some long period component (13 sec) and Eden has come up a bit to 2 metres at 8 sec. Batemans Bay has ramped up sharply from almost flat to 2-4m from the south at about 8 sec.

The models are still suggesting that we will get around 2 metres of 12 sec period south swell tomorrow. And they show those conditions sticking around for another three days or so.

Here’s the Bureau’s latest

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Strong Wind Warning.
Saturday until midnight: Wind: W/SW reaching 25/33 knots, easing to 20/25 knots later tonight.Sea: 2 to 3 metres.Swell: S 1.5 to 2 metres, increasing to 2 to 2.5 metres later tonight.
Sunday: Wind: W/SW 15/20 knots, easing to 10/15 knots late morning, then tending S/SW in the afternoon. Sea: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: S 2 to 3 metres.
Monday: Wind: E/SE 10/15 knots.
Tuesday: Wind: E/NE 10/20 knots.

Little lines in the last of the light at Long Reef.

All smiles: Cindy and Michelle after catching some fun ones at Longy on glassy evening.

For your contemplation.

There's a tern chasing dinner in the middle of that splash.

Hello Friends,

That muffled thump you heard overnight was Huey falling into a stupor. He started looking under the weather at around lunchtime yesterday when the average period of our little ESE windswell started to drop from a barely adequate 8 seconds. Overnight the power setting has slipped down to 6 seconds. And just to help things along, the primary direction has swung to the south. It’s averaging around a metre at sea, so the best you can hope for will be set waves with faces in the 0.5 to 1 metre.

0715 about the biggest set I saw along the Collaroy Narrabeen stretch.

I checked the Collaroy-Narrabeen stretch first this morning, and the sight was not too inspiring. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the water along the stretch, and for very good reason – there really aren’t any waves. The only thing I saw that looked like a wave was a little baby peak just south of Marquesas. I got a snap of it folding over, but you’d need to have been about 0.5 metre tall to do much with it.

Around the corner at Longy, the situation was just as dire. I didn’t see anything resembling a wave from Dontals-Butterbox to the pole. And from the pole to Dee Why point wasn’t dramatically better. As the picture below shows, it’s just weak and gutless little stuff coming feebily in.

Maybe if you had a kayak or a SUP you could sort of catch one of these.

Here’s the latest from the Bureau:

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Thursday until midnight: Wind: S/SE 15/20 knots, easing to 10/15 knots later.Sea: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: SE about 1 metre.
Friday: Wind: S/SE 10/15 knots, turning NE 10/15 knots in the afternoon or evening.Sea: about 1 metre. Swell: SE 1 to 1.5 metres.
Saturday: Wind: NW/NE winds 10/15 knots, increasing to 15/20 knots in the afternoon.

Interestingly, the models are suggesting that we could see a slight increase from the south as the day goes along. But since the period is unlikely to improve much, if the swell does pick up, it will be focused on places with the best exposure to the south.

Outlook for the next week remains for marginal to near flat conditions along the east coast. The models show a fairly intense system spinning up in the bight region early next week. If that system does get going, and if it doesn’t get deflected by the trans Tasman high, and if it comes around Tasmania and into our swell window… we could have swell next weekend! I should go into economic forecasting eh?

Have yourself a top old day and go well with your plans.