It's been a great but mixed year of waves personally. I get in the water nearly every day and the East Coast has hardly fallen flat, but also only pumped sporadically and more so outside of winter.

A fortunate work-related trip to South Australia for the Yorkes Surfarama kicked off the year with a bang. The weekend coincided with a winter-sized swell and great winds for a couple of the regions premier breaks.

It was a month or so until Sydney saw any considerable size, but a deep Tasman Low generated an initial stormy south swell early March, cleaning up and swinging more east while maintaining size.

Manly pumped for days with low numbers on the beach, a great option away from the packed reefs.

At the end of the month I headed to the Alaskan wilderness, chasing turns of a different kind, that being cold blower powder. A once in a lifetime trip, in that we fit so much into a fortnight, while immersing ourselves amongst some of the most stunning scenery you could dream of.

Winter took a while to kick in across southern Australia, and a period of good winds and swell lined up for a quick dash back home. Sub zero temperature nights in the swag made all the worthwhile for a bit of Southern Ocean perfection.

Winter was generally below bar with persistent but far from pumping southerly swells, though near the end of June, the coast lit up with 3 days of excellent quality easterly swell throwing up beautiful backlit barrels from Newcastle to Eden.

The Australian snow season started slow but turned into one of the best in near two decades, providing some large dry dumps and epic powder days in the backcountry. One of these weekend's involved chasing snow one day, then surf the next though the long 6 hour drive back to Sydney and sheer exhaustion had us questioning why, and if it's worth following up the next weeekend.

There was a sneaky day or two at this location with hardly a crowd and super fun waves, helping get through early spring before hitting up a late season swell in Indonesia.

And just to end the year in style, the start of December saw the Sydney region pump under a moderate sized east-northeast swell along with autumnesque winds and conditions over a few days.

Here's to another productive 2018.