From where I’m sitting in the water this morning the sun is in the North, sneaking up over the ridge that at some point is where the Anawhata road passes by. A mist sits in the air, it’s just hanging there in these great golden shafts created by the sun breaking through the different nooks and crannies in the ridge line. The shadows are licorice black. The offshore wind whipping the spray off the breaking waves brings a little extra hiss to the occasion. “Not a bad place to sit” is my go-to opener if I can be bothered talking with anyone on days like this. Because, no matter what happens, how good or bad the actual surf experience turns out. You’re just there. For 5 out of the 7 days of it anyway. Because the Tasman side of Tamaki Makaurau has just outdone itself again.
The wind started blowing gentle Easterlies around the middle of last week, it took a couple of days for the ocean to settle down, by Friday, it was getting epic. Adding to the epic nature of events was the time of day this was happening: The last two ours of daylight on gin clear days provided by our little Island in the middle of winter. The high tide. The legendary Bar and a couple of sand banks at South Piha.
Simple physical economics: Walk a bit more if you want to paddle less. This leads me to take the easy way out, through The Keyhole, a cave through the big rock to the left if you’re looking towards Sydney from the beach. Rarely is The Easy Way so rewarding. The water rushes through the cave, swirls around a bit in a pool at it’s ‘non ocean end’ entrance, and then when it resedes and rushes back through and out of the cave into the bay, you’re on it. Your hands feel the cold a little on the first few paddles but the sun is shining into the mouth of the cave because it’s in it’s northern most winterly position, it smiles and invites you out through the kelp and rocks into the surf.
I catch a couple waves that are the first up of pretty decent sized sets, and because they’re full-of-water proper west coast waves that have been gathering energy for about 5000 kilometers since they began existence as a storm somewhere between Scott Base and Glen Eden, the ones after the wave you catch pretty much destroy you and you get washed into the beach, complete surrender being the most physically economic option. But it’s cool because you get to go out through the cave again. Thursday and Friday were both like this. Last of the light, handful of people, quality surf and you feel a bit special because, well, it’s July man. Middle of bloody winter. That’s why the physical economics matter. Everything’s a bit harder. Even if the modern wetsuit is better than ‘not cold’ and actually ‘comfortably warm’, they still make paddling more demanding. But paddle you will. Because when you catch one of these waves it’s really, really special.
As you take off, you drop down the wave into it’s shadow, then as you go along, you’re heading into the sun, rising and falling in and out of this shadow. The sun is shining orange through the unbroken, rippling, chattering, green part of the wave and then as it breaks just in front of you it lights up the globlets of foam as they’re flung out in front of all of this magnificence. You pop off the end into full sun and if you don’t take the get washed in option, because your wave has kindly deposited you in the rip, you start paddling back out because you just have to do that again.
So I had two spectacular evenings, full of this carry on. Instagram was alive with Thursday and Friday night’s skies, the best grammage of course, was being uploaded from the black sand beaches.
Trusting the forecast as gospel, I didn’t surf the weekend. The weather wasn’t very volatile, it was clear and still – delicate to light winds, there was nothing to suggest anything was going to change in a hurry. I left the weekend crowds to the weekend crowds. Word in the water on Tuesday morning was that on Saturday you could have walked on people to get to your spot in the line up. Sweet as. Saw that coming. I’ll watch some Saturday sport, and have a homely Sunday. I have plans for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Now the high tide I’m favouring is in the morning, so everything’s different. The 50 minute drive starts in the dark, and when you get there, the sun hasn’t really hit the water. Monday’s quite nice. The size has come down a bit from Friday, paddling out through the keyhole is completely unnecessary but I do it anyway. I surf the left. The big ones are still quiet big. It’s fun.
The Piha store’s open, so I can get a coffee after my surf. Maybe even a Chorizo toastie (Monday) or a Ginger Slice (Tuesday). I talk to the girls in the store about how wonderfully quiet is. They’re in full agreement. A handful of surfers, tradesmen and council workers, a scattering of tourists and not much else in the way of human occupation.
I noticed for the first time on the Tuesday just how literally quiet it was. Of course, the energy of the ocean will always dominate the soundscape out here – but in winter, there aren’t a couple of thousand yelling, squealing, yabbering people on the beach and in the water crowding up the rest of the frequencies. It’s positively serene. Audible space.
Tuesdays good. Smallest of the days, playful easy surf and some good long rides if you got the right one. And I did. Several times. This day was the beginning of the damp bit of the North Easterly flow. It was misty and rainy, silver and smooth and still. The colour had been sucked out of everything, the sea looked like an old silver gelatin photographic print. No more orange waves or golden mists.
By the time I’m getting out of the water, the offshores are picking up, and according to the report, we’re coming to the end of this weather pattern. It’s going to pick up in size, the offshores are going to get stronger then it’s turning Northerly (useless) before South Westerly (horrible), and it may not be nice again for a while.
Wednesday morning it was raining and the offshores were indeed, getting stronger. The swell was bigger and the whole scene, although not heavy, was much more obviously winter than any of the other days. There were some good waves to be had, breaking long and hard. And even if the surface was being a little ruffled by the strong winds, they looked beautiful. Some sets came through and hit the bar in sensational form, but nobody caught them because they were coming out of nowhere, so it was difficult to be in the right position. I hung around a bit and got a couple, but not of magazine cover quality that we had watched come through and about which I may have articulately said to the surfer closest to me “Fuck. That’s nice.”
Actual wave of the week was Wednesday. One of the bigger ones, just crouched down and drove straight down the line and getting up more and more speed, the board starts slapping into the chop creating a relatively even beat before I straighten up the stance a bit, shift some weight towards the front of the board and just easily drift the 9 footer up and down the face a few times, step back, plant the rear foot, lean hard into a forehand turn, back into the power of the wave as it bends a little, bring the board back around and then another long straight line drawn high up on the face before dropping down then quickly back up to actually kick out quite nicely, pretty much at the sand. Which was much cooler than just running out of power and stumbing into a clumsy, splashy heap as sometimes happens, killing any kind of spiritual vibe you might be having.
So after 5 days of surfing, it’s nice to remember one of the actual rides. Rather than simply being overwhelmed by the sheer majesty, power and beauty I was required to be part of in order to get them. Shit I’m glad I do this.
Nice one Turts
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