Check the Western Australian swell forecast and the little arrow indicating swell direction is almost meaningless. Day after week after month the damn thing just sits there pointing from the southwest. Follow the line and you'll end up in the southern Indian Ocean, down where the Roaring Forties rumble, the swell engine for the whole West Oz coast.

Yet every now and again - think years not months - and the little arrow clocks around towards the north. The occasion that sticks in everyone's memory is the swell from Tropical Cyclone Bianca that struck in 2011. The following year Tropical Cyclone Iggy delivered Bianca-lite waves, but since then....nothing. The little arrow has been locked off on the southwest quadrant.

On Saturday the swell arrow shifted again, this time for the swell from Tropical Cyclone Marcus. The swell hit the northwest first, turning known left points into rare right slabs, while the forerunners hit the Margaret River region late Saturday alerting the locals that maybe it wasn't gonna be a hoax.

Swell from a rare angle and a unique storm was always gonna have the coast behaving differently. Inconsistency and just plain weirdness were some of the complaints: cyclone swells can be prone to intermittent pulses, while spots that see years of southerly sand movement were taken by surprise.

As of this morning the little arrow indicating swell direction in WA has shifted back to the southwest and who knows when it'll move again.

Shannon Worrall just metres from dry sand (Driftwood Photography)

Seven skis lurking, one guy racing (Mike O'Brien)

Choppa Read inside the king of all shorebreaks (Rowan Walker)

Bunno on the pump (Steve Allen)

Haven't caught a wave for a while? Paddle inside at your own peril.

All angles covered (swestoz)

Andrew Semark playing at the top of the stairwell (Fiona Peters)

Rights all over (Matty Lodge)

A rare left in a rare cyclone swell (westozsurfpics)

Makeable? (Owen Schultz)

Same wave as above. Note the nose poking out - it was a paddle entry and the wave was made (Owen Schultz)

Almost close enough to high five on the way by (Ray Stone Photo)

One slips through the crowd at Scarborough (westozsurfpics)

The rare swell direction saw the energy hitting the sand unimpeded (Peter Jovic Photography)

...and it turned some left points into right slabs (Ry Craike)

...and other left points into under-sucking ledges suffering an all day low tide (Ry Craike)

Meanwhile, a rare wave in Darwin lights up (read: breaks) from Cyclone Marcus swell (Micah Ramsay)