Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
The Margaret River coast was peppered by swell over the weekend. Protected bays and points served up some quality waves on Saturday afternoon as the swell built from 2.5m to 3.0m over the day.
The swell peaked early on Sunday morning at 3.5m. Margs was pumping at dawn in the light ESE’ly. A couple of tow teams were on it early, taking turns whipping into the 12ft+ bombs as they lurched their way down the reef. Being on shorter, heavier boards gave the tow surfers good control over their craft, allowing them to cut through chop and fade deep to set up big barrels and critical turns in the huge bowls of the waves.
It’s not really possible to surf very critically on a big wave paddle board because you can’t get in as deep as the tow surfers and once you’re on the wave a longer board is much more difficult to turn and manoeuvre. But the paddle crew were dominating, stroking into the biggest lumps the ocean threw at them and riding them to glory. Jarrad Davies and Matt D-C got onto some beasts.
As soon as the paddle surfers made it out to the peak the tow boys buzzed off, observing good tow-in/paddle-in etiquette. For those who aren’t familiar with big wave etiquette, if paddle surfers paddle out at a wave where tow crew are surfing then the tow teams must defer to the paddle surfers.
At about 10am the southerly wind kicked in and gradually blew stronger, shifting into the SSW over the course of the day. Bays and points were once again the pick in the afternoon.
Random pic: I did the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk (near Walpole) on Saturday. It’s so beautiful down there so I had to throw in a random tree pic!
The weekend is shaping up to be pretty small; a 1-1.5m swell will be kicking around with offshore winds. Hopefully there will be a few waves around. Enjoy.
Christmas is just around the corner so if you have a favourite shot from the ww archives or my portfolio then shoot me an email with your print order and I will get them in the mail.
>>ww
