Gallery: October Sessions
Last Friday was a day of contrasts.
It started wet and windy with a strong north-east breeze making a mess of the ocean, but with a gusty offshore change pegged for late morning along with clearing weather and a peak in east-northeast swells, all the ingredients were there for a classic afternoon of surf.
I worked through the morning, watching the change push across the Blue Mountains, onwards to the coast. The skies cleared around Sydney at 9am, but it wasn't until one final burst of showers moved offshore just before 11am that winds turned west of north.
At first, conditions were raw with shorter period 5-6ft peaks pushing into the north-east magnets, but after an hour the windswell component began to drop out, surface conditions settled, and the waves began to pump on the dropping tide.
As the afternoon developed, a pulse of long-range groundswell kept crew hunting the inside sections honest, with larger sets detonating outside every 10 minutes or so.
Into the evening, the swell slowed a little but the rush of crowds also abated, leaving a handful of locals - Blake Levett being the standout at my local - to enjoy a special out-of-season session on a glorious Friday night.
Comments
Great pics Craigo
You ever heard of the Pilbara Princess Syndrome?
It’s where a girl who is a 5 getting on the plane in Perth emerges onto the tarmac at a remote mining town as an 8/10 due to the extreme male to female ratio*.
I reckon Manly has a similar effect going on where a 5/10 wave anywhere else looks like an 8/10 amongst the cosmopolitan closeouts.
*BTW…this is not sexist as I’ve also been to a place where my hideousness has been elevated to a crazy and irrational 6/10 because there was 60 girls for every guy. Such fond memories! It’s actually where I met my life partner. The effect is so real that I was worried than when she finally met me on the mainland she might think I’d pulled off some weird type of cat fishing deal as I looked more Quasimodo than Brad Pitt when other blokes were around.
LOL DSDS... Too true. I think in economics they call it an imbalance of supply and demand
It’s funny cause it’s true
Nice photos Craig, was a great evening for it. Started slowing down where I was late arvo, but just before sunset the midlength crew got out just as the swell picked up again. Me and one other bloke just taking turns on the reef, wave for wave, keeping out of each other's way and not exchanging a word to each other the whole time. All the while blue skies and glassy conditions hold. Doesn't get better than that.