Bullies

I've got to write the following, while a lot of it is still fresh in my head. I mentioned before that I was expecting an extraordinary session of surfing yesterday, well in a way it was. We didn't leave home until later than planned and reached the final stretch of the 77 kilometre trip down south at 8:30AM. This last bit of distance includes a steep hill that runs for about 5 kilometres down to the coast, from the top you can generally tell if it's glassy, onshores or whatever. If you look to the left from here you can take a guess at how big the swell is by sighting through a small gap in the landscape. If you look to the far right towards a reef named "Frenchman's", you can take another guess at swell size. Lying, down below in front of you is the view of the small country town of Middleton. On this particular morning, there was a bit of sea mist hanging in the air but we could still make out a bit of whitewater over to the left but Frenchman's, somehow, looked different.
When we looked straight down the bottom of the road we were travelling on, it was quite clear to see whitewater beyond the seaward side of the town. This meant two things, 1. It was either an extremely low tide with a reasonable sized swell running or 2. It was any sort of tide with a huge swell pushing through. When we finally arrived at our destination we found out it was the latter. It was enormous and I had no idea what position the tide was in as it was almost impossible to see the point, which normally sticks out like a sore thumb. The waves were breaking so far out, that they seemed to be coming from forever and upon reaching the point they defiantly raced over it, threatening to wash it away completely. There was no one around besides ourselves and the only way I would've gone out there, was if another few guys turned up, as it wouldn't be too healthy being out there by oneself.

Dale Elliott	Dale Elliott	Not known	Dale Elliott	Allen Odgers	Peter Dunn
David Giddings	Allen Odgers	Allen Odgers	Not known	Allen Odgers	David Giddings
Not Known	Not Known	David Giddings	Not Known	David Giddings	Not Known
Peter Dunn	Not Known	Peter Dunn	Peter Dunn	Peter Dunn

We waited around for a half an hour or so until a fellow member from the club turned up and for the next few minutes we discussed which would be the best place to go out from. He said he was going to go out from the bay, while I agreed, I thought I'd wait until he went out to see how difficult it was. Also I would've liked to have seen a few more guys with the same intent. He drove his car closer to the launching spot in the bay and proceeded to get undressed and into his wetsuit etc. The next thing I know he got back in his car and drove off. We hung around for a few more minutes waiting for someone else to turn up but those that did just drove on through and hardly gave it a glance. I was a little disappointed as it looked pretty good and glassy, even it was going to be one hell of a paddle. Finally we decided to go and get some breakfast at the local bakery and make back to the mid-coast or make our way home, depending on what was happening there.

After filling our bellies up with health food I had the bright idea to go and check out some other spots down here like Boomer, Chiton or the dump. As these places hold a very large swell and the girl hasn't seen one locally as yet. Upon reaching the lookout at Boomer (aptly named) I could see huge swells stalking in under the peaceful looking guise of glassy, alluring mountains. Further down the beach and over to our right I could make out a tiny figure through the mist at the bottom of a huge breaking wave and out beyond him sat a number of small dots in amongst these large mountains rolling into shore. The name of this place was Bullies and what an apt name it is too. There was a longboarder prowling the beach, looking for a safe way out through the massive shorebreak, without having much success. I raced to the car, grabbed the camera, thinking that this special moment was going to disappear before it could be recorded. When I got back to the lookout I found out that I was still too far away to do any justice of getting a good photo or two of this occasion, as we'd left the 500mm lens at home. So with the camera and tripod all mounted and ready to go I marched down the railway line that runs along the beach to the next vantage place about 300 metres further down. When I got there I decided to go down onto the beach as it has a very steep incline and one can still see most of the action out back, regardless of the waves in front.

Please! Give me a second or two, to describe the features that make up this break and the surrounding area. Most of the sand here is very granular and comes from millions of years of pounding the granite rocks like the ones nearby at Knights beach, Port Elliot. At the tide's lowest ebb, you can see a number of jagged rocks at the water's edge that reach out to make up the outer reefs. The beach is so steep, right along this stretch that when it's this size, just getting out past the concrete like shorebreak is intimidating enough without worrying about what's happening outside. Combined with the steepness of the beach, a large, consistent swell with hardly any outlet for all this energy to escape, this amounts to a shorebreak that resembles a consistency of wet cement. Out the back, the wave itself comes out of very deep water and is very reminiscent of some breaks on the east coast, insomuch that it's almost impossible to see a big, sneaker set coming. Mainly, though it's a regular breaking peak, which is a right hander and an occasional, unpredictable left, both with a very late take-off. On a very low tide a larger than normal wave hits the outer reef and can break, almost top to bottom. So, being caught inside with a rogue set hitting this reef can have horrendous effects on the unwary.

For about three-quarters of an hour, the longboarder whose name was Allen Odgers persisted in his attempts to get out past the shorebreak and I for one admired his persistence. Eventually, he walked further down the beach to the right where the shorebreak looked less vicious and after talking some initial pounding's, eventually he made it out the back. He was the only longboarder out there, while the rest where all shortboard riders which included Peter Dunn, Dale Elliot, and David Giddings. Now I've seen my share of big wave riders in my time and even though I'm reasonably sure that most of these blokes out there had limited experience in the big stuff. I'm proud to say that they all acquitted themselves pretty well, despite some quite serious situations that were presented to them. Every now and then, all of them got caught inside by a big sneaker and luckily enough survived it, but I would hate to think of what would've have happened if there was a disaster, as there was only a small crowd watching and no emergency service close, handy. If going out was a major problem then coming in through the shorebreak wasn't much easier. One young bloke got caught right in the impact zone and got completely hammered by it. So much so, that when he finally made it ashore he collapsed with exhaustion on the beach and lay there for awhile until he recuperated.

Most of the rides these blokes got were successful and some of them very impressive, mainly due to the consistency of the break, albeit a menacing one. Rarely, did we see anyone suffer a horrific wipeout although there were the odd one or two humorous dismounts. As the minutes went by, so did the movement of the tide on its journey to its zenith, with that the waves became fatter and the number of rides diminished until the reef outside wasn't hardly breaking at all.

This morning we went back to Bullies, armed with the 500mm lens but unfortunately the swell had dropped and there were only a few Boogieboarders out at Knights. I just wonder how long it will be before we see it working like this again.