Monday, May 19th, 2008
Bailing the city and heading north to escape the cold grip of winter is a great feeling. You can feel yourself unwind as you blaze north to warmer climes. There’s plenty of time during the long drive to uncover old gold on your iPod and spend some QT with your mates.
Desert Reef came alive on Wednesday morning last week. It was 6-8 foot and clean as a whistle. The Reef stamped her authority on the session at dawn: a bodyboarder dropped out of the lip on a 10 footer bouncing hard at the bottom of the wave when he landed. He was unable to pull up under the lip and into the tube, so the thick lip decimated him, dislocating his shoulder and breaking his collar bone. Brutal.
Mike “Stomper” McAuliffe was stroking into some smokers during the morning session. How’s this double tube sequence?!
Plenty of perfect tubes rifled down the reef over the course of the day. I overheard a Euro lad say, “It sounds like a train when it passes!”. The afternoon had some solid ones too.
The transition from desert to ocean makes for some beautiful landscapes, a rich dichotomy between the barren, desolate desert-scape and the vibrant Ningaloo Reef.
The colours come alive in the late afternoon when the sun pours down its mellow, golden-honeyed hue.
The swell dropped over the next couple days, but there were still some chunks up for grabs at exposed parts of the coast. Kelly Slater dominated this wave back in the late 90s, so it is now known simply as Slater’s Right.
Plenty of swell around over the next few days and into the weekend. Hopefully the winds cooperate!
>>ww
