Nothing feels better than knocking off work at the start of a holiday especially when you’re heading somewhere warm like the Ningaloo Reef. I had to pick up a new board and pack the car on Friday morning but we were on the road by midday, blazing north again to warmer climes…
There were some good waves on offer when we finally rolled into the desert camp on Saturday afternoon. We quickly unloaded the car and dashed to the point to dust off the cobwebs from 14hrs on the road with a few winding 3-4 footers. The water was warm and there was only one other dude in the water - yeus!
Sunday was pretty small again but Monday turned on with 4-6 foot barrelling lefts. When you get a good one up there you really know about it - if you make the drop and scrape under the lip you’re pretty much guaranteed a long, deep, mesmerising tube. Don’t blow it though cause you’ll almost certainly get touched up by the shallow coral. Think Indo perfection mixed up with a bit of raw West Oz power…
The rest of the week was pretty small but there were still plenty of fun waves at the small wave reefs and we did plenty of fishing and shnorkelling which is standard on any trip to Ningaloo. The amazing smorgasbord of marine life never ceases to amaze me up there - we saw turtles, sea snakes, dolphins, colourful fishies, stingrays, sharks and a swag of other marine animalia. There was a great feeling of community in the camp too, everyone sharing their catches and yarning around the camp fire…so many epic feeds of fish!
It’s funny when you’re in a surf camp when there’s a swell on the radar…pretty much everyone in camp is guilty of talking it up “aww, it’s got an 18sec period fella…yeah, nah it’s gunna be PUMPING when this swell hits…better dust off your gun, 8-10 foot guarans mate”. Sometimes it eventuates, other times it doesn’t - internet surf forecasting is definitely fallible and unfortunately this was one of those occasions. When the swell finally hit it was still pretty epic early in the morning with 4-6 foot glassy tubes (not the 8-10 foot monsters expected) but about 2hrs after dawn the northerly wind kicked in turning the wave face into a bump n’ jump ski run and the swell dropped back to 3 foot. We had already got what we came for though…time to head home.
A quick detour to a familiar point break on the road home then back to chilly Perth, brrrr…
Rock bad boys, Bourbon Sprawl lit up Mojos last night with some wicked, devilbanging, full throttle rock n’ roll. The boys put on a dazzling stage show comprised of razor sharp drumming, wailing guitars and rowdy vocals. Check their website - rock lords they soon shall be!
Looks like a decent weekend of surf coming up…it’s going to be pretty small up and down the West Oz coast but winds will be good so there’ll be something about if you’re keen. Hope you have a good one!
>>ww
quote of the week:
Lisa: “How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?”
Homer: “7″
Lisa: “Dad, it’s a rhetorical question!”
Homer: “Rhetorical ay…8″
