The Great Autumn, Part Two: Gold Coast Prelude
In the week leading up to NSW’s bomb Saturday, coasts further north were surreal.
Sharkies, Tuesday morning.
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It probably shouldn’t have been this good. But it was.
“At the start of the week I wasn’t thinking it was going to be insane,” says Andrew Shield. “But the way it went, the conditions and the sand everywhere were so good.”
Shieldsy’s been surfing and shooting the southern Queensland and northern NSW coasts pretty much forever. He has a finely tuned eye for wind and wave. On Tuesday last week, he checked Burleigh Cove, looked beyond it to the sandy zone just off Burleigh headland known as Sharkies, and realised something interesting was happening.
The Great Autumn, Part One: Weekend From Heaven
When the wind went offshore early on Saturday, everywhere south of Coffs went a bit nuts.
Photo: Steen Barnes @16images
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Offshore and Pumping. That’s what Surfline forecaster Ben Macartney told us would happen, and well, it did. This has to be one of the great autumns, especially in central and southern NSW. Things just keep falling into place. The past weekend just made the point for us in most emphatic fashion.
Not everywhere was this full on, but you hunt what you hunt. Hayden Blair in the belly of the thing, Solander. Photo: Hayley Alderton
The Breaker
Yep, finally pumping. Photo: Steve Arklay
Sean Doherty
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Mid-last week, Surfline forecaster Katie Jackson identified an explosive weather phenomenon extra-tropical moisture merging with a cold Antarctic low under Madagascar, and moving east armed with super-low central pressure and intensifying winds.
The resulting swell struck all Australia’s SW-facing coastlines, first southern WA, then rapidly hammering everywhere else with scary power levels. But its real focus ended up being western Victoria. The guns came out, the guns were snapped, and one surfer at least was badly hurt. Our man on the spot,
Sean Doherty reports: