Onshore

Did a run down south this morning in spite of yesterday's shark warnings.

The swell was that in between size that made it difficult to find the right place and the sea breeze came in by 7.30.

My mate and I tried a bank to the north of Supertubes because it was empty and looked ok from the carpark. It did have a little potential but was to inconsistent and the inside shallow, rocky and full of sea weed. We did catch a couple of mainly close outs and my mate got slammed shoulder first into hidden rock before the wind made it unsurfable.

The wind has set in but isn't sure if it wants to be a southerly or a south westerly. Either way there might be a wind wave locally this afternoon and I'm sure the kite boarders will be out there.

0.35 @ 12 with seas 0.58 and winds southerly 15 - 20 kph.

Swell in the water

The forecast has jumped to 5 to 6 metres tonight dropping slowly tomorrow. The Naturaliste buoy is 4.92 on one measure and over 6 on the graph. Bunbury harbour is 0.9 at 14 seconds.

Tomorrow morning is meant to be offshore. With this much swell it would be worth a trip south despite the holiday crowds as every where will be firing. Bunbury will depend on how much swell the banks and reef can hold.

New swell

New long period swell in the water and offshore winds. I haven't looked this morning because I have to work and don't need any more torture than that !

Coastalwatch has down south being 6' plus and firing.

Could be a good start to the holidays for the groms but today looks like the best for the next few as the winds swing onshore earlier each day.

0.54 @ 13 and still going up

Good news/bad news

Been a while since I've had a good news/bad news day which I think is kind of good news.

Good news - went down south with a mate.

Bad news - strong wind warning - southerlies

Good news - buckets of swell and the wind is offshore and just right

Bad news - none for this bit

Good news - Smiths is cranking. The beachies, the reef and supers are all throwing up more than fun waves. The reef is even tubing. The sun is out and the water crystal clear.

Bad news - none here either

Good news - chose one of my favourite places, a series of banks between the reef and Supers. The big ones are closing out but the in between ones look good.

Bad news - my back, which was getting better, chose today to seize up. No paddling power and whenever I try to stand I'm so stiff I can't get my feet underneath me.

Good news - I'll just go in and take a picture or two on my new camera

Bad news - camera stops working. I assume that was because the battery wasn't really charged but when I get home I find its because the camera is full of water !!!!!!!!

Bad news - the SD card has died

Good news - dried out and wait long enough and the SD card starts working again

Good news - came home, had a great lunch at Happy Wife with my happy wife and then a great little hand plane session at Juniors. Got some nice rides, little cover ups and one left that wouldn't quit.

All in all more good news than bad.

If you are looking for a wave there is a few out of the rip at Juniors but although the wind is swinging more south it should stay ok for the rest of the day.

0.51 @ 11

Motion

There is a chunky new swell in the water this morning. Lots of water moving around but not very surfable at this stage although there is the odd medium one between close outs.

If you read this early enough it would be worth a quick run south. Coastalwatch is calling 10+ with offshores.

Naturaliste has gone from two metres at lunch time yesterday to almost four at the moment. Its jumped nearly a metre since midnight and looks like it might still be going up. Stormsurf has a big blob of 20' + swell on it model.

The harbour buoy is 0.88 with a long 14 second period.

Calm

No real wind since midnight and what there is now is offshore. But there isn't much swell getting in and  the tide is really low.

The harbour buoy has the swell direction as west but the Naturaliste buoy has it very south. There are a few little runners at BP with a couple of banks up and down the beach and a left at Juniors but it doesn't seem to have much push.

If you're reading this I'm guessing you're not down south already so if you really want to get wet and you have a small wave board it could be worth the paddle when it warms up.

0.49 @ 12

Disappointing

Coastalwatch is reporting solid conditions down south and building swell in Perth but here there is nada.

There isn't much swell and the offshore wind is freezing. The Clam has some size but no shape and BP no size so it is missing the bank.

The harbour buoy is showing 0.54 at 14 and holding.

I'm free to get wet today so I'll be monitoring just in case.

There's

A bit of swell showing but no shape. Might be worth keeping a eye on if you don't have anything pressing to do.

If you can get down south and out of the wind a little it should be good all day.

0.49 @ 14

Swell

Plenty of swell around and off shores this morning. I didn't want to torture myself by checking it on the way to work but I suspect it was pretty messy with the wonky swell and small wave banks. I could have been wrong but it kept my sanity at work.

I wandered around my office and cruelly told one of the blokes, who is a bit of a big wave hell man, that Coastalwatch had Marges as 10 foot. He couldn't jump on the swell cams fast enough but we both felt a little better as it was a decent size but a bit drunk looking. We did see one guy get fully pitted at the little bank south of Smith reef but it was crowded and fluky.

Swell is still up around the 0.7 mark and holding steady. The forecast if for it to slowly ease over the next couple of days but with south west winds. First thing Saturday might be ok or the trip down south for a sheltered spot or two (hopefully the crowd will be surfed out).

Arvo

Still plenty of swell but massive lulls. When a set does come at least two of the three waves is a close out. BP Reef does have a few rideable ones.

A spy tells me that Yallingup was pretty huge. The Naturaliste buoy is showing 2.3 after maxing at three last night.

Size : big 2 foot
Wind : NNE
Swell : 0.58 at 14 - dropping from a mid day peak of 0.7
Quality : ok if you get the rare one with a wall
Desperation level : about 10 degrees cooler than it is
Recommendation : wag work and go south for an early

Mushy

Mushy onshore conditions by the time I got to the beach. A few out at Yalls and Rabbits but they were just paddling and getting cleaned up.

Smiths was cleaner but the swell was a bit small for it to any good.

Weekends

Down in Dunsborough for work over the next few days. The conditions are not great with strengthening southerlies but some swell.

There were a few out at Rabbits battling the rip. Smiths had a crowd on the beachies. Inji had some little wave and a group getting cleaner longer rides at the Point.

Nothing was worth writing home about.

Days off

Got a couple of mid week days off as I'm working the weekend. Emailed a few friends with view to heading south. As usual people started dropping out here and there until it was just two of us.

Conditions were nice. The swell was pretty small (around 1.4 on the buoy) and the offshore was howling but after checking three spots we decided on a beach break just north of Supertubes.

The waves were only about 1 - 2 foot but super clean and wally. Even at that size there was plenty of push.

The warning of a washed up whale carcass bringing sharks kept us watching and the super clear water had every piece of weed looking like a creature.

It took me a while to get some rhythm, missing a lot of waves and getting stuck behind the section but my friend was surfing better than I had seen before. We swapped board and he pulled off a couple of big slashes on my short and loser dhu-fish.

The only negatives were having to leave with waves still pumping in, ending up with a swollen elbow from a rail collision and sunburn.

Did I mention that we were the only ones out ?

Elsewhere there were plenty of winter banks hanging around. The stretch from Rabbits past Shallows had a number of peaks and quite a few surfers. Mitchell Rocks may not have been throwing up the Cyclone Biancca wedge but there were one or two peaks. They did look a bit frustrating as the surfers tried to decide to wait out the back or inside for the suckier and more consistent one.

Hot and offshore over the next few days. It doesn't look like there will be much swell but you can always be surprised.

Boost

More Taj and Jay Davies down south boosting in onshore crap.

1111 from Elsegoodproductions.com on Vimeo.

Sunday Night Movies

I've been in Perth for the last week but I get the impression it has been flat. Here's a selection of some of the best videos from WA recently surfacing on the net.

Pumping waves down south

Brenno Dorrington // North Point from Tom Jennings on Vimeo.

Bunny Bay from Taj Burrow on Vimeo.

And up north

Low tide delight..gnaraloo from nate brejnak on Vimeo.

And a bit of both

Sun and southerlies

Finally some sun, even if it did make the morning freezing cold (1.7 at 6.00 am). The swell has dropped to around three metres and the wind have swung into the south.

Went down south on the off chance that PK would be working but it wasn't. The swell was wrapping in as far a Rocky Point but I was disappointed again. I have got to that age where I surf the waves that will be the funnest not the best and often decide to go to a place because that is the type of wave I want to surf and go away dry if that place isn't on despite waves elsewhere.

The trip across the hill to Yallingup revealed double overhead conditions with only a five guys out (and a whale). The wind was cross shore and there were some decent walls to carve if you caught the right one. One guy caught a long, long left and ended up coming in at Rabbits because that was closer than coming into the reef.

Smiths had some nice conditions and a few people dotted amongst the beach break. It looked like the people shooting the Tim Winton film were out at Supertubes. There were a couple of jet skis but not much action.

Hope

The coastal waters forecast suggests that the winds might swing offshore late tomorrow and stay that way through Friday. Swell hangs around three metres.

Locally the beach has been pretty hacked up so the swell might be wasted and even if there is a bank or two you'd better like surfing in choc milk. Be careful because there are a pile normally sand covered rocks that are now waiting for fins and feet.

If you're up for better waves head down south Friday and you should score.

Some waves

I was working today so didn't get a look until late this afternoon. it looked like the conditions had stayed glassy for the whole day and there was still plenty of waves around as the sun was setting.

The tide was pretty low after the big highs of last week so there was plenty of dumpers. The handful out at the groyne were getting the odd wave that was walling. It looked like the rip was quite savage as they couldn't seem to get in the best spot and the waves were warping a little.

Three groms were sharing an after school session at clean BP reef and getting filmed by one of the Dad's. The waves looked quite nice, a little wasted on groms !

The Back Beach had a few dotted here and there but there were plenty of closeouts and weed.

I'm guessing that Capel would have been very good and so would have Binningup. As is the norm in winter tomorrow is a bit of a toss up, you'll just have to wait and see.

There is predictions of another big swell with the front on Friday. Apparently down south was in the 10 to 15 foot range for most of last weekend and could be coping another pounding this weekend. Maybe Brave the crowds at the Farm ??

More groyne

Another nice session at the BP Groyne today. The swell has dropped with yesterday's smaller waves today's sets but the wind was still light and there were enough breaking to get your fill.

There were basically three types of waves coming through. The rip wasn't that strong so the bigger set waves were hitting the outside bank before reaching the rip and closing out. The rest fell into two categories the ones that twisted towards the groyne and the ones that bent away.

The ones that bend away were 80/20 closeouts/speed runs. The ones that bent in either were really small and rolled into the shorebreak. The remainder held up in the rip and after take off, tended to back off slightly giving some face or a nose ride section (I was on my mal).

The water was cool but nice freezing (after the first wash over anyway) and nice and clear. The crowd was me and then a body boarder towards the end.

Looks like the swell is still on the wane but it shouldn't be long before there is another kick..


Down south is meant to have been good over the last few days and may be worth a trip if you have the time.

Kites crash

Never took up windsurfing even though I thought about it many times. Always though that the flat water stuff was to boring and didn't have the patients to do the basics so I could start doing the jumping and surfing parts which looked fun. Same goes for kite surfing which looks even more fun including on flat water. This video shows some professional kiters who took on a killer slab down south before the session turned to shit.


Horror session - kitesurfing Western Australia from BENWILSONVISION on Vimeo.