Historically fortifying boat harbour entrances has spelt doom for surf breaks. There are many examples around the world where work was completed decades before surfers had a voice and even longer before governments and councils saw value in surf breaks.

In the 1960’s a classy break called Killer Dana was snuffed out when making way for Dana Point Harbour. In rare instances, some surf breaks were actually created by the extension of rock walls, or breakwater grounds. Two of these bookend the Gold Coast, creating Duranbah and South Straddies TOS (The Other Side).

Before the retainer walls at the mouth of the Tweed River were extended in 1962 Dbah was no man’s land. I have vivid memories of sitting in the family Buick atop Point Danger in or around 1960. My father was a rad fisherman and watching trawlers negotiating the Tweed Bar was a hectic show, especially when a swell was running.

Many crossings ended in tragedy, and not only amongst the hardy trawler men. The wreck of the SS Coolangatta is regularly exposed on Dbah beach. Even now the crossing is dangerous, only weeks ago another tragedy unfolded on a small boat crossing on a big day.

Before the wall extension the river virtually emptied out onto Dbah. As my father checked the fishing conditions I was mesmerised by this deep blue gutter that was a permanent feature at the Lovers Rock end of the beach.

I was certain that nobody has ever gone swimming at Dbah, it was so ominous, such a no go zone for humans, and the big blue lagoon was sharky beyond belief. Construction began in 1962. There is not much recorded history of when surfing began at Dbah.

My first encounter with Dbah is still vivid in my imagination, and a game changer for my trajectory. Outside the QLD State Titles the biggest Open event in the 1960’s was The Dolphins Contest. Contestants were to meet in Kirra carpark on the Saturday morning.

Cometh the hour, all the hottest surfers rolled up at 6.30am. A surf buddy and me were already out at 2-3’ Kirra, thinking we were putting on a show. Next minute the carpark empties, the event went mobile. After towelling off I set out in pursuit of the Dolphins. No Greenmount, they must be at Snapper, empty.

I rounded the bottom road to Dbah and saw all the cars. There was no tree line back then and the sight of the waves took my breath away. A 6’ A-frame peeled off in the middle of the beach. It was a humbling experience, this place was big with a powerful dumping finish. Robye Deane was on that first wave, bottom turning out to the shoulder and that unmistakeable smooth cutback on his 8’ Merrin Plastic Machine.

It was 1968 and Dbah had arrived as a wave magnet. Little did I know that a world class wave that broke 350 days of the year was in our backyard. The Spring northerlies would create a finger of sand all the way out to near the north wall, making for a ridiculously consistent summer Off The Wall wedging right.

As the southerlies kicked in around January/February a series of A Frames developed along the breadth of the beach and then of course the southern point breaks dominated into and through the autumn and winter. 

As the swell direction shifted from east to south east to predominantly south in the teeth of winter, Dbah came into its own. A mainstay through the smaller months, it became a year round playground, even though in the early 70’s it was mostly a rarely surfed wilderness.

I recall many winter mornings sitting on the hill overlooking Dbah hoping somebody showed up. One classic memory in 1971 was a 6’ wedge with a hard offshore blowing plumes of spray. The only surfer that pitched up was Michael Peterson. I was stoked, I used to hang out at his mums Coolangatta house, where he and his brother Tommy were cutting down boards in the garage, including a couple for bugsy.

MP was so good out there and I was super stoked to surf with him. There was only two of us out and this happened often. His girlfriend Patty told me that MP thought I was stalking him, the paranoia was setting in. I just didn’t want to surf spooky Dbah on my own.

We would often test our Hawaiian guns at Dbah. One day I came over the hill from Point Danger and it was solid, MP was the only one out on a red railed Hawaiian gun. He took off on the mid peak, pulled into the barrel at Privates and emerged with the spit at Lovers. Wow, I raced down the hill, I was late so the first obligatory fading into the pit was brutal, but we had a memorable session with zero witnesses.

Mark Richards would come to Rainbow Bay with his parents, Ray and Val, every school holiday. Me and my mate Bucky Perriot used to make fun of him because as an 11-year-old he had this gawky knock kneed style and he had these iridescent red Midget Farrelly board shorts and waved his arms, but the top half wasn’t in sync with the bottom half , we found it entertaining and so we named him ‘The Kid’.

One afternoon I came streaming over Point Danger and saw this surfer do an amazing roundhouse cutback off the wall. What baffled me was that it was not MP so I raced down the hill to put this interloper in his place on behalf of MP and PT.  To my absolute horror I saw that it was “The Kid” on a McCoy twin fin, no longer gangly and awkward, he was really good. 

Just to highlight how isolated Dbah was from the Cooly scene, in October 1972 I was a month away from going into the draft for Vietnam. By now nobody wanted to go to war, surfers would knee paddle on cement blocks to build board lumps on their ankles so they could not fit into army boots. My plan was to live in a sort of cave on the Rocky outcrop overlooking Dbah. I figured they would never find this hermit surfer. Then the government cancelled the draft and instead of Vietnam I was Hawaii bound. 

The 80’s & 90’s were all time at Dbah. The barrels of Privates and Lovers were only for the best tube riders, a new generation of rippers and keg heads were pulling in and Dbah was by now the go to spot when Kirra wasn’t pumping, and sometimes even when it was. Off The Wall still came back every summer and on weekends the carpark was starting to get packed.

The Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypass Project (TRESBP) was implemented in 2000. The extension of the training walls in 1962 had the effect of disrupting the south to north flow of sand, in fact they deflected the sand and over the decades built up the Tweed Bar to such a point whereby the navigability of the Tweed Bar crossing for both professional and recreational craft became so treacherous that something had to be done.

There was basically 30 years of sand built up, which in turn was robbing the southern QLD points of their lifeblood. This not only made the Cooly beaches vulnerable to cyclones but meant that we would sometimes go for 12-18 months at a time between good banks at Snapper. Opponents of the Sand Bypass forget these extremely lean times and the Chamber of Commerce never did accept my little equation Sand + Surf=Success.

There was a lot of experimentation to get the mix right and Dbah suffered for a few seasons. Taking away the outside bar also took away the swell disruptor, the very sand mounts that broke up and refracted the swell into A-frames. The result was straight handers.

We fought hard to keep our surfing mainstay with a heartbeat. Temporary pipes were utilised from time to time to replenish lost sand, relocating the outlet at Froggies to various points along Dbah. Again, constant monitoring to get that mix right was essential. Too much pumped sand straightened the bank, a balance had to be found that allowed for those natural channels to form that created gutters and broke the swell up into A frames.

Dbah in 2024 is certainly no place to hide from the war, the carpark is packed during the week, there are days when it is wall to wall with surfers. Weirdly there nearly always seems to be just enough to go around, and somethings never change , including Simon Anderson’s sublime rationalisation; ‘the best surfers get the best waves’. Keep on keeping on Duranbah.