It’s taken decades but I’ve finally had a wave on The Omaha Bar. Quite a few actually. What’s unusual about this is that when you grow up on Auckland’s North Shore, surfing Omaha is a given. But it never really delivered, and then on bigger days, being 14 you’d just get pounded by a beach that couldn’t really handle swell and lose your apetite for the place. Then you go West and never come back. I’ve avoided Omaha for years because I’ve always gone further up North rather than commit to that particular peninsula. The surf’s generally bigger the further up the motu you go and the options of Mangawhai & Waipu are close together. And Black Swamp too. I avoid Te Arai simply because nobody else seems to avoid it. And besides, Omaha as a place has never really appealed. It’s a bit, well, Omaha-ey. But that big low just came down the East Coast and changed everything.
I surfed Piha on Monday morning just to get back into it after The Sunshine Coast of Queensland utterly failed to deliver during the family holiday. Made worse by my clumsily reading, and then cut and pasting onto social media, a surf report that described epic conditions. Noosa Points firing for days and everything. I only saw what I wanted to see, which didn’t include the date on the post. It had been months, maybe even years ago. Anyway, no surf, 12 days. But there was one beautiful morning at Sunshine Beach when although the surf was pretty much shit, the cool tropical rain at about 0630AM pounding onto the warm clear ocean was really special and worth getting up for. Maybe even worth crossing the Tasman for.
Then on Tuesday, I’d blocked the day out for work, knowing the swell was really due Wednesday and I needed to set aside time for this work thing and had booked Tuesday with myself.
But my energetic neighbour across the road, loading his ute with the call for a mission in and out of the Omaha Bar for an hour was too much. I initially waved him on but was loading my board in with his within 20 minutes. He had hung around cunningly, knowing I would fold. Besides, trying to think for a living when all you’ll really be thinking about is how your neighbours surf is going never works. Best to clear the mind. Get in the water. Actually fire the mind up a bit.
Some guy had taken a nasty hit in the chest (pointy bit of someone elses surfboard) just before we arrived and we got followed into the grotesquely named ‘Success St’ to the beach access by an ambulance with sirens blazing. It was like the North Shore of Hawaii but with yuppy accomodation.
In the water there were quite simply, far too many stand up paddle boards. (More than one). Not to mention Stand Up Paddle boards with menacing foils. Each to their own I guess, and maybe I understand the quiet speed buzz, but the disconnection from the wave doesn’t do it for me. And he might be a legend, but Laird is a bit of a dick.
We surfed for an hour. The sea breeze had come up, but I’ve learnt to appreciate the sea breeze as a kind of summer vibe. The wave’s pretty fat, which explained the stand ups, but that also makes it great for my longboard. Much mellower take offs than I’m used too.
In fact, compared to Piha in August the whole scene is crazy different to say the least, which is one of the things that makes surfing so damn wonderful. Every different place, every time of day and tide and type of weather has a different feel.
Got a handful, lefts and rights and quite a few times mangaged to draw out some nice long turns and cut backs, crouch and straighten for the ride through the crowd, cut back and then charge through the shorebreak and get out of there before getting smashed into the shells that clatter around right there on that steep bit of beach. The exits weren’t pretty, but they did help avoid, I would imagine, some quite nasty embedding. It’s a pretty long ride all the way through, what a great wave to have so close to Auckland.
My neighbour was well pleased. He knew my lack of affection for the place and he knew he’d changed my mind. I had told him that amongst some of my other surfing buddy’s, making a call and getting it wrong can take some time living down. He hadn’t wanted that. We were buzzing.
Wednesday I had always said, was going to be up north nice and early to get more than a fair share of the action. My traditional approach: See what’s handling the swell best out of Mangawhai, Langs & Waipu Cove. They face 3 different directions, so when the swell is large there are options. And by all accounts we were in for a large swell.
So large in fact that the mainstream news was reporting it. Jeez they just don’t understand and it is ‘they’, because some people are ‘of the ocean’, via yachting, fishing, surfing, just paying attention at the beach, whatever, and some people are not. It’s comedic. Dunno what shitty radio station it was, but some announcer was reading a release, going on about the sea becoming ‘unpredictable’. Really? To many of us it was becoming as predictable AF. That’s why we were all frothing, sharing information, sending pictures, hyping spots and tides and inside knowledge and dragging our neighbours to places they’d never surfed before. The announcer also got it so very wrong – she was warning people, because of this large storm a few hundred kilometres out into the pacific, to take heed on the west coast. Other side, you idiot.
Anyway. Next day I get woken up by the beautiful ‘Hot Night Cold Spaceship’ off Kate Tempest’s ‘Everybody Down’ album. 0450 AM. I love my alarm.
In the car with some fruit, a bottle of water and the means to make an egg sandwich and I’m driving by 0501. It’s the only way up North these days, in the dark by yourself. There’s a little coffee cart on the way into Mangawhai now. She opens at 0600 and makes a decent long black with a shot of cold milk, my traditional surf trip beverage. She also warned me about ‘poo in the water’ at Waipu Cove. I went there anyway.
The swell was so direct from the East that it was having a lot of the size taken out of it at the Cove, still a good sized wave, but it was the wrong angle for any of the little sandbars at Waipu to work and the tide was too full for the tasty little rights off the point to fire up properly. I’m becoming more and more convinced that the East Coast beaches are pretty average at high tide.
Got a couple of short ones, didn’t see any poo, and bailed back round to Mangawhai. (Langs was half the size of Waipu, faces more North, much harder for the swell to get in there.) Mangawhai was much bigger. And on the bar, much, much bigger. Tow in surfing big. I’d say the ski had more to do with being able to deal with the water rushing out of the estuary than the actual size of the waves, which wasn’t insignificant. But I’m basically too lazy to surf the Mangawhai Bar at this size, although the rewards might be there, it’s a shit ton of paddling just to stay in the spot, let alone actually catch anything. I wasn’t into that kind of commitment.
The beach had the odd one lining up, but really, the sand banks and channels were well below par for such a quality swell. It was a shame, but the angle was just all wrong. I was kind of let down. I wanted it to be Mangawhai. I love the place. Maybe low tide was different, but I wasn’t hanging around because I knew where I wanted to be at it’s lowest ebb. Took a couple of late take offs and screamed across the face in a straight line a few times, a good way to guage just how steep and fast you can go on a 9 foot board so it has it’s rewards, but I had places to be.
The drive down from Mangawhai through Tomarata and Pakiri to Omaha is one of the best close to Auckland. It’s like you’re in actual New Zealand. Past the lakes, onto the aptly named ‘Ocean View Road’ getting the car covered in dust like the old days to Piha winding through the hills. I learnt long ago, when a road is named ‘Ocean view’, ‘Ridge’, ‘Valley’ or especially ‘Beach’, just go that way. It’s always better.
Back to Omaha and it’s bigger than the day before. And this easterly swell is banging into the bar quite perfectly. The sea breeze is back, and it’s still full of SUPs but it’s mainly kids on holiday and Dad Surfers. I know I qualify as a Dad Surfer myself, but I do try to charge a bit harder. You know, late, angled take offs, finding the fastest, highest line and such. I like to wear modern, functional surf brands, in black, and wouldn’t be seen dead in an ‘Old Guys Rule’ T shirt. I’m kind of surprised Omaha Bar hasn’t been nicknamed Old Man’s, it’s that kind of wave. One you can ride forever.
It’s such a longboard style wave mainly because the extra board length makes the fatter wave easier to catch, the whole place is a bit softer. Less acute. It doesn’t crackle with electricity like some spots. There’s nothing heavy about it. It’s easy. Even has a couple of channels either side to paddle out in. And it’s one of those places where if you get a wave and ride it all the way in, it’ll put you in the exact spot in the rip to get back out, and that’ll drop you right where the next wave is coming. You become part of the natural process of the water’s movement. And you can get lots and lots of waves.
There was one group of young dudes there having an epic day. The most hipster looking one was a fine longboard surfer, grace and style, really good. Nice moustache. He and his mates had a stack of different boards on the beach, couple of big old single fin mals, some fruity seventies looking number, a couple of short fat twin fins. Just taking turns at riding different boards throughout the day. No doubt, all day. I admired the excellent way they were approaching the sport and want to be like them when I grow up. Wish I had been like them when I was younger.
Got home, pretty stoked. Straight into some Yoga to stretch it all out because I know what I’m doing Thursday. Before I present the work I’ve been thinking about all week in the car between surfs, scribbling on the paper beside me, or pulling in for coffee by the plant shop at Mangawhai and setting up office in there for bit, I’ll give Omaha Bar one more lash.
Even though I steadfastly make sure I go, I’ve learnt not to get to uptight about going for a surf. It doesn’t work. It can even be dangerous. I try a more Que sera approach. Just relax bro, what will be will be. Just get in the water as much as you can.
On the Thursday, I even suggested to my partner she come along for an hour or so at the beach if she wanted. It was so cool having her waiting there in the white sand. She even said “That was a good one” about the wave I caught in at the end. I was stoked.
That’s the thing about Omaha Bar, it’s very hospitable. I’ve never even imagined Penny waiting in the carpark or on the beach for me at Piha in the middle of winter and I’m sure she hasn’t either. Having her on the beach at Omaha was nice. It felt like Malibu in the sixties, a movie. We even met our boy there and he was surfing too. Sharing a surf is actually pretty unusual for me, which is probably why I write these.
This day, having had my fair share of waves on my mal during the week, it was time to continue the learning curve on my Noosa Longboards 7 footer. I bought this because it’s easier to get onto an airplane and just easier to handle in general, but its a bit harder to catch waves on, so I don’t ride it as much. Especially because I generally have to decide which board I’m taking before I leave home. Someone nicking the Wayne Parkes off the racks while I’m on the NL in the water would really do my head in. So I don’t risk it. I’m pretty much certain to get a higher wave count on the bigger board in any conditions, the little one, not so much. So it just doesn’t get ridden as often, I don’t quite ever get it wired and it creates a cycle that feeds itself. I don’t surf as well on the shorter board, so I don’t surf it as much, so I don’t surf as well on it. Hence inviting the little fella to Omaha for a session. Shit. What a mistake.
There was a dude on a board quite similar to my 9’ 2” mal, similar ability, pretty much getting waves galore. Long lefts, beautifully groomed by the off shore that had finally come up and he was gorging himself. I might have thrown more turns, but he was caning it, relaxed and trimming across the face drawing really nice lines on the kind of waves people airbrush onto the side of panel vans. One after the other after the other.
I averted my eyes and did get a couple of nice little ones on the 7 footer while trying not to think too much about what I would have been doing on my mal. I told myself how I had owned the day before and least now you know that Omaha Bar can really turn on in a big East swell and it’s a great mal wave and easy and convenient and family friendly and really, by changing boards, I’m bit like the hipster dude and his mates and Penny being there made it all so California Dreaming and that when it does this again I’ll be there.
Did think about the drive to Whangamata. Still firing off this system, and on my list of quality waves never surfed. But, I figured Friday of Anniversary weekend is gonna be a nightmare getting out of Auckland in any direction and I’ve had plenty of surf this week, being greedy isn’t attractive, the shoulder is asking for a rest and there’s already another little blip on that map out to the North East.
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