As a kid surfer, Peter Howe, learned to read the wind and watch for the southerly swell at The Farm near his hometown south of Wollongong.

As a singer-songwriter he wrote our most memorable surfing lyrics with his close-up imagery of a magic morning inside the barrel, all set among the soft pickings and exotic tunings of his beloved guitar.

He was driving to work from Newport to Palm Beach where he worked as a painter for a boat builder, on the Pittwater side of the fabled Northern Beaches isthmus. It’s a drive that took Peter Howe directly via Avalon Beach every workday.

The chance for a quick pre-work surf at Little Avalon (south) or North Avalon for a young surfer-muso like ‘Pete’ Howe circa 1970 was often a huge pull.

“One day at Little Avalon there was nobody about, maybe Chuck Davis from Bilgola Bop Band (another local surfer-muso); but it was just a beautiful barrel, just a beautiful little liquid barrel,” Howe says.

There was a glint on the water from the fast-rising sun that attracted his eye, and he can clearly still feel the nor’easter that was blowing in his now ‘immortal’ surf song I’m Alive.

Look around at the day
Look around at the day
I’m alive on being around

Where the waves come smiling
With curls all flying
We spend a lot of time
Inside the world of delightful rain

Oh, the whirling wind
Blows its song around the bay
Oh, the whirling wind
Knows my name.       

“When I went home, I picked up the guitar.” He fiddled, just listening at first. “What’s that? What’s that?  That’s Little Avalon. That’s the feel of those waves at Little Avalon early in the morning, you know? That’s where that sound came from. Mostly every tune I’ve ...