Saturday morning delivered a small SE swell to Sydney’s Curl Curl beach and I was on hand to shoot it from around 1015 to 1115. Waves were on the soft side it has to be said, but there were definitely a few fun little sections along with the very occasional head high plus bomb set. I set up at a position roughly 1/3 the way up the beach from South Curl Curl SLSC and focused mainly on the complex of rideable peaks to the south of me. If you were in the water and caught a wave in that time, there’s an excellent chance that I got a shot of you.

Click the pic below to jump to the complete gallery of pictures from the 1015-1115 session of 13 August 2011.

Hello Friends,

Tide’s low a little after 1100 in Sydney and the wind’s supposed to be out of the SE by then. It was showing as NE at North Head when I started tapping this out at a little after 0700 – which is kinda weird since the radar’s showing a steady line of rain events streaming in from the SE. Swell was showing as a couple metres from the SE with an average period of 8 seconds. My guess is you’ll want to be pretty damn keen given all that. The Bureau’s got surf warnings posted for the next few days, but according to the charts, it looks like being SE and more SE through Saturday. But after that… well, if the forecast models turn out to have anything to do with reality, you should be able to make out a green glow off to the NE around Monday. That will be coming from me as I radiate envy at Sydneysiders’ offshore and clean surf conditions – and warm water. It looks like a classic east coast low will form up and fire the good stuff straight at ya.

Meanwhile, over here in so-cal, we’re still waiting for something like waves in the Santa Barbara region. About the only thing that’s happened since I got here is that the water has plunged back down to around 12 degrees thanks to a bout of NW wind.  That would be annoying but bearable if only we had some waves. Instead, we’re looking at dribbly junk that wouldn’t be out of place on a lake. Grumble, grumble.

Here’s a snap from the webcam located at Campus Point to give you an idea of how ordinary it is in Santa Barbara this afternoon.

Have a good one!

Gotta admire the pluck of those riders...

Hello Friends,

Getting back into the routine as the jet lag gradually wears away. Huey kindly isn’t tempting me away from the to do mountain this morning. Dee Why is not exactly a picture of pure fun. I take my metaphorical hat off to those hardy types who were having a lash at the waist to chest high junkiness.

Swell’s outta the SE at a couple metres but the all important frequency setting is only 8 seconds.

The wind’s not much help either. It’s out’ve the ESE at 10-15 kts now and is expected to hold around that level but to swing more to the ENE… blergh.

more thoughts in a bit about the outlook…

Synoptic Situation
A strong high located over the Bight extends a ridge through Bass Strait with a secondary high pressure centre in the southwest Tasman Sea. A trough lies over northeastern New South Wales. A weak southerly change will move into the South Coast on Tuesday morning, reaching Broken Bay during the evening or overnight.

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Tuesday until midnight: Wind: E/SE 15/20 knots, tending E/NE 15/20 knots in the afternoon.Sea: 1.5 to 2 metres.Swell: S/SE 2 to 3 metres.
Wednesday: Wind: NW/NE 8/13 knots, increasing to N/NE 13/18 knots during the afternoon before turning S 10/15 knots later in the evening. Sea: 1 to 1 .5 metres. Swell: S/SE about 1 metre.
Thursday: Wind: S/SE 5/15 knots, turning N/NE.

Not too thunderous looking at Dee Why beach this morning.

Hello Friends,

Not the best looking conditions down at Dee Why beach this morning. Swell has dropped again overnight and it now looks as though the average wave is in the waist high range. Undoubtedly there will be some bigger sets, but if it’s like yesterday, it’ll be pretty disorganised and distinctly windswell-y. Weather promises to be fairly ordinary as well, so it’s looking like a good day to hoe into your chore list.

Might be a plan to block out some surf time in your diary for Sunday-Monday if you’re in the Sydney region. Here’s why:

WAM for Sunday: looking like a fetch for strong east swell.

The prospect is for a juicy east to ESE swell to begin filling in from late Saturday and, on current reckoning, to last through Tuesday. How good has this winter been?

Have yourself a top old day!

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Thursday until midnight: Wind: E/SE 10/15 knots, reaching 15/20 knots at times. Sea: 1 to 1.5 metres.Swell: SE 1.5 to 2 metres. Possible thunderstorms.
Friday: Wind: E/SE 10/15 knots, reaching 15/20 knots at times.Sea: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: SE 1.5 to 2 metres.
Saturday: Wind: E/NE 10/20 knots.

If only the wind was offshore...

Not the most spectacularly interesting morning. 20kts of ESE wind has made it very junky at Dee Why – and pretty much everywhere else in Sydney. Swell is SE and averaging a touch over at 2 metres. The dominant period is around the 8 second mark, but there’s some 10 sec stuff in the mix and that’s providing the odd overhead bomb set.

Naturally there aren’t too many takers given the conditions. If you haven’t had a chance to get a wave all week and this is your only opportunity, I’d say go. It’s a mess, but the competition for the better ones will be minimal pretty much anywhere you go. Although I’ve no plans for it today, I like to jump into the water on days like this once in awhile just to remind myself that it’s possible to have fun even when it looks very ordinary from the beach.

Have yourself a top old Sunday!

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Sunday until midnight: Wind: SE 18/23 knots. Sea: 1.5 to 2 metres.Swell: SE 2 to 2.5 metres. Chance isolated thunderstorms.
Monday: Wind: E/SE 10/15 knots Sea: 1 to 1.5 metres.Swell: S/SE 2 to 2.5 metres.
Tuesday: Wind: E/NE 10/15 knots.

A few bods bodyboarding about in the messy conditions at Dee Why point.

Hello Friends,

The Bureau was absolutely right about the south change coming through before daybreak. Yesterday evening there was still a bit of size going on, but the offerings this morning are much more modest. If you want to compare and contrast, just click the link to yesterday’s pics under the daily gallery.

You can see when the southerly hit on the MHL buoy data for Sydney because the average direction starts moving rapidly away from the east. More dramatic though is the power setting. In the space of an hour, the average period went from 10 sec to eight.

Even though the average size of the swell at sea has only dropped marginally to a touch under 2 metres, that decrease in period has seen wave faces at a spot like Dee Why now half what they were yesterday. The southerly is blasting along at 20-30 kts and the Bureau says the cloudy skies could drop the odd spot of rain.

Here’s the latest synopsis from the Bureau:

Sydney Coastal Waters, Broken Bay to Port Hacking and 60nm seawards:
Strong Wind Warning.
Monday until midnight: Wind: S’ly 20/30 knots, easing to S/SE 15/20 knots late in the day.Sea: 2 to 3 metres, abating to 1 to 2 metres late.Swell: E 2 metres, tending S/SE 2 to 2.5 metres.
Tuesday: Wind: SW/SE 10/20 knots. Sea: 1 to 2 metres. Swell: S/SE 2 metres.
Wednesday: Wind: S/SE 10/20 knots.

From the look of the Batemans Bay buoy, we can probably expect the average height of waves at south exposed spots to start ramping up in the next few hours. Naturally we’ll be keeping a close eye on it all.

Go well with your day!

Southerly blowing hard outside at 0640.

Hello Friends,

Since this morning, Huey’s decided to make a few changes. First he tweaked the swell direction back to SE from the dead south, then he bumped the average size from a metre to over two metres. At the same time the period has gone from 6 to 8 seconds.

The only setting that isn’t too flash is the wind. It’s been SE all day. As the sun gets lower in the sky, it’s still pushing along at 10-15 kts. Outlook for tomorrow is similar in the morning, but the wind should go around to the NE.

There were some chest to shoulder high sets at Warriewood, Northy and Gardens. But the quality was pretty ordinary. It was relatively smooth at Warriewood, but the waves seemed a bit weak to me. Northy was really messy and although there were some shoulder high faces, there were only three or four people in the water on a warm and relatively sunny afternoon. There weren’t that many more in down toward Gardens. It was slightly less messy than Northy and similar size. But the banks were looking pretty ordinary on the low tide. A touch more water over them and it might be a different story.

With luck, the swell should move more around to the ENE overnight and the period should stretch out as well. Could be good if we’re lucky tomorrow morning. Longer term outlook is for relatively windy and periodically rainy conditions. One of the models is currently calling for strong east wind and big ENE swell by midweek. Not too many surf options under those circumstances, sadly.

Have yourself a top old evening!

Sand-laden section at Warriewood around 1610.

1700: little crunchers at low tide at far north Collaroy.

1700: checking out the shape on a Gardens shorey

1610: a few sets getting into Warriewood and out of the wind too.

1615: wind chewing up the okay size windswell at Northy.

My phone went off this morning with a call from PB who was checking the beaches and had heard about a shark attack at Avalon on the radio. He’s now been up there and spoken to a few folks on the beach and I’ve set up a story which I’ll update if more news comes to hand. It sounds like the wound is pretty bad, but not life threatening. The SLSC people have apparently closed all beaches from Bungan to Palmy.

0915: not too clean looking but plenty of folks in sampling the quality anyway.

Surf situation looks less than attractive at Dee Why. There isn’t much wind yet, but it’s been blowing SE since last night, so the chop factor is now pretty high. It’s set to stay SE through tomorrow, but the wind speeds aren’t supposed to go nuts. The Bureau says 10-15kts E-SE for today.

Tide is incoming until 1051. Swell is showing just on two metres at 8 seconds apart from the SE out on the MHL buoy off Sydney.

As the picture shows, that means junky waist to chest high waves at SE-friendly spots, with the occasional bomb set into the head high plus range.

I’m giving it an average rating of 5/10. What would you call it?