Deus Ex Machina

Over the past month surfers in South East Queensland and Northern New South Wales have seen a run of unbelievable swells. The most recent surge via cyclone Winston had media and surf forecasters in a wild frenzy with the pop headline, “The Swell Of The Decade” blowing expectations well out of proportion. For Gold Coasters it seemed that the title might have had some merit… the Super Bank certainly did do its thing. Unfortunately for a lot of would be shortboarding swell chasers who made the pilgrimage north of Queensland’s capital the headline, “The Talk Up Of The Decade” might have been more relevant. On the Sunshine Coast there were no stand-up tubes, Kong was wrong but the swell from cyclone Winston was still a full weekend’s worth point-break pleasure. It was small wave heaven as usual and anyone with brains enough to have a longboard in their quiver was gifted with glorious, 2-3 foot perfection. Check the photos and see how fun it was. We were there sampling it during the long days in the sun at the beach. In hindsight… Was it worth the irreparable sun damage done to our skin? Probably not. Would we do it again? Absolutely. But what remains to be seen is whether the shortboarding masses will believe the hype and come flocking north of Brisbane the next time a big old cyclone revs up the ocean? Read more here...