Good-Epic: Southern NSW, July 5
Just one moment from an Australian winter on fire.
Nick Carroll
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Photo: Steen Barnes/16images
To be perfectly honest, this could have been almost anywhere along the NSW coastline on this particular day. A weekend of beautiful, clean, soft if still well overhead surf was tracked in by something just a bit more muscular and long-interval. Right on cue, the coldest offshore winds of the year so far came gusting over the coastal escarpment above this splendid surf zone, brushing back dozens nay, possibly hundreds of wedged-up beachbreak peaks. Add to that a Covid-inspired lockdown in nearby Sydney, with its associated restrictions on roaring up and down the coast hunting waves, and silent yet increasingly deadly photographer Steen Barnes found his lens pointing at this moment of glorious emptiness. It’s still the Year of the Local down here, gang.
Good-Epic: Empty (!) Kirra, May 25
Solid swell graces dawn patrol at the Gold Coast s finest pointbreak
Nick Carroll
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Photo: Andrew Shield
Everyone on the Gold Coast knew it was coming. Nobody expected it at 7:50am. The expert consensus among Goldie aficionados was to wait for the afternoon’s low tide, but the east swell called in by Surfline’s forecast team showed up a few hours early. The key to its early arrival? Stronger winds in the swell’s original fetch off northern New Zealand, where gales peaked at over 40 knots between 48 and 72 hours earlier. In any case, it meant that longtime Gold Coast photographer Andrew Shield, who ventured up on the hill overlooking Kirra in the early morning light, saw something almost nobody does this days maybe the finest sand point in the world, doing what it does best, with just a solo onlooker paddling towards it.
Good-Epic: New England, May 22
Early-season subtropical storm Ana sends surf to East Coast
Marcus Sanders
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Photo: Trevor Murphy
Normally in May, surfers on the East Coast of the United States are either biding their time, waiting impatiently for September or holed up in some far-flung locale more suited to Southern Hemisphere swells. Not this year. As Surfline forecaster Rob Mitstifer explains: “For the seventh year in a row, the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season kicked off before the official June 1st start date when we saw Subtropical Storm Ana develop this week. Even though named storms themselves normally attract most of the attention, Ana was really not very impressive on its own. The unsung hero that made this a special swell was a massive ridge of high pressure that extended all the way from the Azores across the Canadian Maritimes and down the US East Coast.”