Written by Anthony Ireson. Photography by Tim Blake.
The last dry season was amazing, having moved here for work without even a thought that I might get a surf in was mind-blowing. Luckily, I had brought a board with me, being close to Indo I thought I might just happen to skip over there at some point for a break to get my surfing fix. It took me a while to get used to the fact that surfing here involved likely sharing the lineup with crocs (Baru in local lingo), sharks and the lethal stinger varieties of Irukandji and box jellyfish. After surfing the whole dry season, we didn’t see anything in the water, our dogs swam around next to us in the lineup without a care in the world so we figured if the crocs were hungry, they would be the first to go instead of us. There were plenty of signs that the local reptiles were active on the beaches. Tim had put the drone up several times over our favourite line ups during the wet season only to discover that the crocs and sharks seemed to favour this area. There are two distinct seasons here, the surf only breaks in the dry season, when the SW trade winds generate some short period wind swell. It’s generally weak and wind affected but some spots are protected and line up nicely which was a complete surprise. But the water is murky, and you can’t see more than three-foot in front of you, so getting in that first time was a real mind fuck.
In the wet season the ocean is completely still, and the water is gin clear, it seems to be the prime time for crocs to traverse the area and it’s also stinger season. You generally don’t enter the water in these months. As a nurse working up here, I had treated many poor souls in the ED who had been stung by either the box jelly or Irukandji and believe me it’s not pretty, something I didn’t want to experience.
As the dry season came to an end and the surf disappeared, we put our boards away and got ready for the buildup to the wet. We’d had some good sessions, maybe one-two surfs per week if we were lucky, point breaks and reefs of varying quality, but just the fact we were out here surfing miles away from anywhere was amazing.
A few months later mid-way through the dreaded wet, we were at work one slow evening when Tim and I were checking the net looking at waves elsewhere on the charts. Tim is a doctor from Victoria and I’m a nurse from the south coast of NSW. Both locations are home to great waves, Tim, like me, thought that moving here was the end of his surfing time for a while, but we were both wrong. Looking at the weather charts this evening we were drawn to a tropical low located way south of us maybe 300km away. The forecast mentioned the system may intensify to a cyclone over the coming few days and possibly track close to our location. If the forecast was right, we could see some favourable offshore winds and maybe some swell from the SW, but it was hit and miss. We were living in the tropics, so cyclones are always possible. The last one to come through this way was in 2015 and luckily it just clipped the town on its way through and there was minimal damage. We got back to work, reminding ourselves to keep an eye on the charts, maybe by the weekend we could see a change?
Two days later on a Friday evening at work I checked the forecast again. The cyclone forecast track showed the system intensifying to a category two cyclone and heading north towards us before making landfall on the coast, again far enough away to not hit us directly or cause any damage. On Sunday morning Tim rang me at 7.30, “Something is brewing mate I’ve just watched the point out front get bigger all morning, there’s four-foot sets hitting the reef, get down here!!” Tim lived on the beach in a small town 20 minutes south of me, there was a right-hand point out front of his place which we regularly surfed and another few spots just down the road. I threw all my stuff in the Ute and flew down there. Pulling into Tim’s place I could see the point firing in the distance, offshore four-foot maybe bigger? This was a rarity, as most of the surfs we’d had in the dry season the swell rarely got over three-foot, so this was insane. Standing on Tim’s veranda looking through the binoculars I could see rights hitting the reef way out past where we normally surfed and barrelling right across it. Looking out to the island offshore I was amazed to see the sandbar with three-four-foot lefts peeling down the side of it. We had never seen waves out there ever, so the swell must be on the rise and who knows how big this was going to get? The winds were howling from the west and there were huge ominous thunderclouds banked on the horizon.
Given what we could see out on the island and further down the coast we figured the best way to see what was happening would be by boat as road access was pretty much non-existent past Tim’s place. Luckily Tim had a huge fishing boat called Dexter, totally rigged up for offshore adventuring, and the boat ramp was literally 200 metres from his house. We loaded up the boat with the essentials for the day, boards, food, water and a rifle… just in case we had some visitors in the lineups. We set off, passing the point near Tim’s on the way out, it was good, bigger than we’d ever seen it, but we were intrigued to see what lay out on the island and south of there down the coast.
As we came up to the island we could see lines to the horizon, a huge storm sat further out to sea bringing rain and huge lightning strikes, the air was thick with humidity and the sea a range of various blues, browns and green. Long lefts were roaring across the back of the island, we had never seen waves out here, probably because we had never seen swell this big!! We motored slowly across the lineup, hollow lefts broke off the reef and spun 300 metres across the channel into deep water. We put the drone up to get some footage and to check for any nasties lurking in the water. No crocs in the lineup from what we could see. We originally had a theory that crocs disliked turbulent water and therefore wouldn’t be seen anywhere around waves. But this theory was shattered one day when Tim put up the drone over a frequented spot only to find a three-metre croc passing straight across the reef.
We decided we would do a quick run down the coast to see what else was happening. From this point south we hadn’t surfed anywhere, there were next to no roads accessing the coast, so it was all a mystery. We could see white water in the distance, coming up to one of the local rivers we were amazed to see a right-hand point break, around three foot, and perfect waves fanning into the mouth of the river. The colours were amazing, deep greens amongst the sand-tinged water, on a deep red background thanks to the mineral rich ground. The wave was a sand bottomed cruiser not dissimilar to anything you would find on the north coast of NSW minus, well anyone.
After surveying the drone footage for any pesky reptiles, we threw the anchor over and both of us jumped off the side of the boat. Trading rights for over an hour, we looked at each other and shook our heads, how good is this!!! Perfect three-four-foot waves, which to our knowledge may never have been surfed before. After about an hour and a half, we went back to the boat. We knew our time was limited so we wanted to head back up the coast and check some other spots before conditions changed and the light faded.
Motoring north back towards Tim’s place we stopped off at the lefts. Tim was a goofy so he was hanging to try some lefts given the one we normally surfed in the dry was a stark comparison to this. We pulled up near the island, Tim was over the side in a flash. This time I was left to drive the boat around as there were some sneaky sets rolling through wide so we couldn’t anchor the boat.
Tim surfed the long lefts till he could no longer paddle. There was a huge sweep running across the break but having got a few waves around 300 metres long Tim called it quits. We motored back north towards his house as the afternoon light started to fade under the thunderclouds that had sat there all day bringing cooling showers to the oppressive heat of the wet season. As we came up to some of the regular spots we surfed during the season, the clouds briefly parted, and the sun shone down illuminating the water to a vivid green, and the surrounding beaches a stunning ochre red. We came up to one of the points we surfed a lot, there was a small crew of local lads getting amongst it on what most were calling the best conditions they had ever seen and surfed. We anchored up again and jumped in to join the crew in the last remaining couple of hours of daylight. Hoots and yelling filled the lineup, the lads were stoked, we all knew we were witnessing something amazing and as the afternoon faded, so did the swell, we all wondered if it would be here tomorrow or if this was it..
We got a few nice lefts, had a chat, then got back on board Dexter and motored to the boat ramp. We got back to Tim’s just on dusk after roughly 11 hours on the water. Tim and I cracked a beer on the verandah as we watched the last lines of swell disapear into the sunset, empty rights ran down the point out front, we were completely stuffed but grinning ear to ear knowing what we had surfed today had never been done before and likely wont be done again anytime soon.
