Morn Pen surf report
MP seems to always be more fun when it’s peaky / chopped up... on too many occasions I’ve been amped up for prime conditions and there seems to be zero decent options
Yep she does let ya down a lot.
But in saying that if you’re looking for tubular swells on the back beaches southe east winds are not going to give you your best chance
Anyone else remember the knucklehead who used to do the Flinders surf report? Always pumping always offshore even when the beaches were reported as mush.
Ted Bainbridge ( Radio 3XY ), or as we called him on the Surfcoast (for the same reasons mentioned) "Tidal Wave Ted" . Always 4+ ft , offshore & a good chance of gettin' a few waves if you heading down that way today !!!!.
ted was a mate of mine and we used to surf together a bit back in the day.let's say we were at portsea ,northerly,3-4 ft.in the car .find a public telephone booth and ring thru the report.now that was the report for mornington peninsula,phillip island and west coast.say we'd get back to portsea and sea breeze kicked in,stiff shit-no update those days.
You guys pay the person who does the daily report yeah?
He seems to slack off on the weekends and can’t be arsed putting a photo up even though it says it will be up around 8:00am..
Maybe dock his pay until he starts doing his job properly ;-)
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Fuck'n surfees (not to be confused with surfers), ya gotta laugh, or ya'd fuckin' cry!!!!!??? In a nut shell?????!!!
'Exsthcuthe meee cann eneewun pweesthe tewll me if wun of vem waywve fingy's is vewre pweesthe...'
I've seen enough... no more, I'm begging you's please... my guts, please...
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Goofy, the ballina report says tune back in for the updated photo report at 8am every single morning.
I haven't seen a photo in 4 years of checking it.
Not that I want one, it just seems an odd thing to say.
Yeah, I am luckily living a 1 minute drive to the beach so I’ve never based whether I went for a surf off what the photo looked like. I just go check..
But, I’ve got mates who live 30 minutes away so they don’t mind seeing a pic.
Why say it if you’re not going to do it?
I think I got an explanation when I asked before.
It might be an automatic template entrance in the dawn report so it just comes up in all of them.
Can't remember for sure though.
“Pretty glassy, kinda misty, definitely solid this morning. If you were onto it, you’ld be over Flinders way for the early morning high tide too capitalise on these conditions”
That was part of the notes from this mornings report. I’m sure this was mentioned recently but do we really need to name actual beaches?
Not to mention which tide to surf those beaches on!
Surely just stating the conditions is enough yeah? Let the punters figure out where to go based on that.
At least it’s only 5/10 today.
C’mon guys, be a bit more subtle in the daily reports eh?
Don't quite understand the issue GF. No locations are mentioned (only broad regions), all of which have been extensively documented in daily online surf reports since at least 2001.
Ben flinders isnt a broad region, every wave you surf there is within about a 2km space.
It’s not like saying everyone go to the Gold Coast on this swell and this tide, it’s a tiny place.
I just don’t get why you need to mention that.
Report the conditions as you see them at that location. Let people figure where to surf based on that report.
Let alone say “it’s high tide, everyone head off to Flinders.”
Edit* according to my google earth measuring ruler, it’s 1.97km of surfable area.
Can you see how telling hundreds (thousands?) of people to go to this area on this tide could lead to problems?
You're seeing thousands of people at Flinders?
The report did say "Flinders and the Bay", which is a generic description for "it's too big for the ocean beaches, so looks like you'll have to head around the corner". That ain't really much of a secret. As I said before that very suggestion has been a regular part of MP surf reports for a very long time, well before Swellnet came along. It was certainly a frequent inclusion in the early SurfShop.com.au surf reports I used to tune into daily.
I just find it hard to believe that there'd be punters who - being told that the open beaches were too big - suddenly decided "ah well then, looks like there can't be any kind of surfable wave around today. I'll have to wait until it halves in size". Every Victorian surfer knows there are waves in Western Port, the surf report is kinda stating the obvious in a broad sense.
No I was stating the amount of people that look at the report in the morning. I’ve got no idea if it’s 50, 500 or 1000!
And yesterday when I posted this, it didn’t say flinders and the bay. It said what I copied and pasted above ^^^
Anyway thanks for the reply but I can see I’m wasting my time here.
Next time it’s 3-4ft the reporter could say which beach has the best banks too, that’d be great.
C'mon mate, in seventeen years of providing this service we've never provided specific break info. All reporters get this brief when they come on board. Sure, sometimes there's a fine line to tread - trying to keep things fresh, day in day out is bloody hard, especially in the early morning - but in this case I think you're getting overly excited.
Ain't called the Hoax Coast for nothing. Haha!
Actually, I found lots of parallels between SA surf options (living in Adelaide) and MP surf options (living in Melbourne). Similar driving for similar waves: the Mid Coast is like Western Port: usually not much, occasionally good/fun, rarely fantastic. Closer to the CBD so gets hit hard when it's busy as it's an alternative to the West Coast.
Victor Harbor is like Flinders and the open beaches: fickle reefs that are always missing that one crucial ingredient (tide, wind, a little more/less size), and Waits and Parsons are like the open MP beaches between Gunna and Portsea: funky, weird sandbanks, occasionally epic but usually frustrating as hell. And always better when your mates were, and you weren't.
And both regions have a couple of mysto waves that are incredible when they turn on.
I've done way more driving on both coasts looking for waves (in a single day) than anywhere else in the country. Back and forth, back and forth.
Gotta love it.
..... well actually Ben, there was that very annoying period when SN hired Shane Waters to do daily reports of Flinders, always talked it up and named breaks.
Anyway, to GFs earlier point "Flinders" has 5 main breaks and 4 of the 5 have very small take off points. So, just a few guys out can make it a busy surf. Further, all 5 are heavily tide dependant, typical only working on one tide. The place has been picked dry by the hoards using the new freeways and the property spivs making it the place to be on a weekend for "the landed gentry and cashed up love birds". Property there is outrageous. Gone are the days when it was a little fishing village.
For these reasons and for those mentioned by GF not mentioning the place would be the honourable thing to do.
Never heard of a bloke called Shane Waters.
And we haven't had a Flinders/Western Port surf reporter for many years now.
Quiz time! See if you pick the surf spot, and the year the comment was made (bonus points for the website it was posted on).
"Weekend 'e-tag' surfers may as well stay home than surf this spot, it has got too crowded. You can surf at pines with the rest of the kooks. Thank-you."
Well, Ben SN did hire Shane, he ran Waters Retro Surf Shop at Balnarring for a period. Yes it was years ago.
No idea on who's report it is, but agree with the sentiment, that place is wall to wall kooks, non leggie wearing hipsters and fukn old fat bastards thinking its still the 1970s .... but apart from that it a great place.
Website is Wannasurf.
Surf spot is Cyrils.
The year is 2001.
That's eighteen years ago: one year before I registered the Swellnet website, and four years before we started Vic surf reports. And twelve years before the Frankston Bypass went in. Not sure what the property prices were back then though.
(BTW, I may be mistaken with Shane - we've got 30 surf report locations and so over the last 17 years we've rotated through a lot of different crew - the name doesn't ring bell but the shop at Balnarring does).
Pretty chilled where I was this morning.
That was before the report invited everyone along for the ride though!
I know it's no secret but do we need the break named on here?
have you not noticed that wannasurf has pretty much shut down?
The comments are years old.
I'd suggest shutdown due to surfers picking the fuck out of site because the site were a bunch of fuckwits.
Good job surfers.
Wannasurf blew everything open in one big arse disruption. It doesn't make it right.
Absolutely no need to say 'go to flinders for the high tide'.
There's loads of shit but good information out there. It's the putting it all together that's dangerous. That's what pisses people off. Absolutely no need foe that shit at all.
Nah, Wannasurf hasn’t been shut down. The owner has simply lost interest and hasn’t updated it in many, many years. Like a lot of websites that were popular back then.
Interesting the phases the internet has gone through.
Early days everything was just home made page type pages like fan pages of bands etc. (angel fire)
Then we had the commercial aspect develop and then sites like Wannasurf.
And then social media came in first my space then Facebook and instagram, and bang no one really uses those websites like wanna surf
Its almost like social media has created a bubble within the internet that people only escape when they really need to search for something.
Fleazool - so, you were having a "pretty chilled" session (on your own?) this morning, and then the crowd increased to “not many” because Swellnet “invited everyone along for the ride”?
Righto.
As for typing the word ‘Cyrils’ in an obscure forum post, you may be concerned to find that a Google search for ‘Cyrils’, ‘Flinders’ and ‘Surf’ returns 105,000 website results.
All good ben. As I said the comment about the crowd was a dig. Nothing more nothing less.
Even though it wasn't busy it can be a circus at times on the peninsula and Id rather avoid the masses if possible.
Maybe the summer crowd has got to me.
Be interested to know how many crew actually click on the report or this thread. Even though I know that ain't gonna happen.
I still don’t get it though. It’s legit common knowledge that when it’s too big for the beaches where too go for a wave. Same goes for optimal tide, I could think of maybe one reef in the whole peninsula that works on the low.
By mentioning Flinders way, the only people that wouldn’t be aware would have too be either people who just happened to begin their surfing career or people passing through that day (who have probably already done their research or have their copy of “The Surfer's Travel Guide: Australia.” in their glove box.)
Then with that potential amount of people who you could count on one hand disperse over a few breaks, or at worst congregate at one, would be as noticeable as the inch high forerunners of new swell.
But atleast today we can rejoice as it seems there will be no heads in the water today!
You don’t get why I got my knickers in a knot?
Or why the reporter needs to mention Flinders?
I reckon you guys totally overestimate your average below average surfer.
I know heaps of guys that pretty much only surf when someone else does, they basically follow their mates around like a little lost puppy. They have no idea of the best winds or tides, dont even seem interested, they travel with no plan or research, they basically jag it everytime they surf. Good on em, the universe is often kind to such gowiththeflowfulness.
Then there's a heap of guys that organise their surfs days, even weeks in advance, picking the wind, predicting the swell, assessung posibilities of subtle tide changes etc. looking for that little window, where it all comes together, without a legion of heroes and halfwits.
Unfortunately the latter surfer now also has to factor in where the surf report and forcast is going to send the hordes. Quite often sacrificing the optimum conditions of the day to find some sanity on the edges of mayhem.
Surf reports spelling out every last detail are just making this harder and harder. No need to spoon feed the halfwits, report the swell, wind and tide sure, but no need to put it all together naming places, it's just bad form. Bad form that goes against decades of culture that has served surfing well.
My thoughts exactly sypkan. I'm a regular out there and absolutely notice the crowd when Flinders is mentioned in the report, I reckon it doubles. Even best case scenario, if it results in 1 more beginner out there getting in your way when you are half way through a turn or bailing their board in front of you it's too many. I don't know why the reporter just can't say 'beachies to big, head to protected spots'?
Hey Ben,
What's up with this...
"Looking fun this morning. Excellent swell range for the beaches and theres a gentle wind coming from the SE at the moment. Lets be honest. Its the best wind scenrio for this coast. "
This was written by the reporter this morning. How is a SE wind the best scenario for a coast that is offshore in NE wind? Unless you enjoy surfing cross/onshore waves over offshore waves?