Deep Down

Friday, October 30th, 2009  Posted by stuart

Wed 28th october, saw a large 4 to 5 m 16 second SW swell hit the south of Tasmania, with light to NE winds.
Big numbers were expected at Shippies after last weeks swell of the year, got everyone excited on the mutant.
So we opted out for this swell, in order to taste some finer fruits from the deep SW, we organized Dave Wyatt from

Southern Ocean Adventures, he was frothin as always.

The original plan was to chase a big open ocean bombie way off the southern tip of tasmania, the winds were forecasted to drop off late in the arvo,
we loaded the whole boat except the skis, then drama hit, one of the skis wouldn’t start, which held the trip up with an hour of backyard mechanics, we had to call it, it was too late to leave! we would miss the swell that night. everyone was disappointed, but you cant help those kind of things sometimes.

So a change of direction was called by all, we were now down, James hollmer due to the dead ski, the team now consisted of, Mikey brennan, marti p, Andrew Mooney, Brook Phillips and Shaun Wallbank. we knew of a heavy left slab alot further west, it was a gamble but with the peak of the swell gone, it was our only hope.
Leaving the harbour at 230am, we steamed 5 hrs to our destination,

We woke on Thursday morning half asleep, to light NE winds grooming the left, it was a tricky set up, with 3 different reefs all attracting large peaks of swell,
as far as we know, no one has surfed this wave, Dave has seen it, in full flight and said this was only a taste of what it can provide,

Mikey brennan and Shaun Wallbank have the surf froth levels of your average 13 year old grom, almost throwing the ski in the water, they were straight on it,
the rest of the crew followed. Marti Paradisis had a new 9 ft Haydenshapes Gun, so he went out to paddle into some large lumps with Brook phillips.

Everyone got some fun waves, but a combination of the offshore wind and forecasted dropping swell wasn’t working in our favour! the left got really slow between sets.
Mikey Brennan got one last set for the day, receiving a few 1000 ltrs of water to the head, after the barrel collapased on him, sending him deep. he popped up fine but on that note
we headed back to a few set ups we knew would be producing some quality sand bottom pits.

As soon as we laid eyes on the set up, the whole boat was racing to get there suits on, 1, 2, 3, 4, the lads jumped off the boat, straight into a dream set up, 4 to 5 ft rights peeling down a sandbar, quickly followed by Dave (the Captain) and fellow Deckhand Nick Harris

It was a quality fun session to finish the trip, we didn’t score mind bending reefs, but the point set up, provided more then enough smiles for the journey home.

stu