This is the worst summer ever!

T.P this morning, as posted on the Swellnet Daily Report....

At the end of the day you just gotta make do with what you have got, I think everyone would love to live up the road from consistent good surf, fact of the matter is it is just not always possible.

Get a few different boards, chill out and just get out there if only for a paddle with you mates sometimes, I reckon I would grow a tail if I did not get in the water at least twice a week, regardless of conditions.

so true it has been so crap this year no swell and no waves at least last year we had waves last year.

Another thing I have noticed in the summer just gone and even now is that people have absolutely no standards anymore.
People seem to paddle out in a screaming onshore with 20cm straight handers.
There would be more on offer at the local park if the wind is up
If they can stand up for a half second on anything remotely resembling a wave there will be a pack hunting it.
The explosion in crowds has left everyone in desperation for anything half rideable
There is nothing wrong with putting surfing down for a while and feeling refreshed when your getting back into it.
Or changing sports (wishful thinking)

Department of Transport tides and waves division do keep all the records.
You can't just download the data (otherwise it can be used by consultants etc to make profit), but you can request it if for a study or something non-profit, and then sign a waiver that legally binds you to not reproduce or on-sell.
the coastal managment group has a couple of folk that will review the records either for internal info, or to produce scientific papers, and otherwise it gets issued to universities for phd and honours studies usually.
if i hear of any review done of the swell patterns for the last year or so, i'll keep you posted. there has been an above normal movement of sand northwards at a few key spots i know are monitored this past 6-12 months, which suggests more energy hitting those beaches in that direction over that time (probably more consistent south to southwest swell then previous years- not saying that means thumper or memorable swells, just more on average for the duration).


and if anyone is wondering why the cape nat wave buoy is down, it is a telstra issue from the base computer back to the central storage point, the buoy is fine as far as i know and is still recording. telstra crew apparently are on their way to check it. bl00dy hard to get decent reception in those parts

re: surf spot above from JB ^^
i was looking at this the other day because of a maintenance issue at another site, and i was actually quite surprised to see that the aerial shots from previous years actually show about the same amount of sand there annually going back the last few years. bearing in mind that the timing of the photo doesn't allow for what the tide was, but it is pretty apparent. FYI - i have surfed around that area since i was a grom, (mid90s), so it is funny what your memory tells you it "has always been like", and i have surfed it both as rocky as in the 2nd photo, but also with some sweet wedges bouncing off the front of the wall.

when it comes to "where does the build up come from and where is it going" questions, there is a fair bit of work on sediment cells for WA already published - can't remember if i linked this before, but here it is again
www.transport.wa.gov.au/imarine/coastal-erosion-and-stability.asp
sediment cells for your area:
www.transport.wa.gov.au/mediaFiles/marine/MAC_R_CoastalSedimentCellsReport.pdf
yours is G 29 (a and b most relevant) if you want to quickly find it.

basically you have to get a bit lucky with where these structures have been put - if it is a "node" , where sand kind of wants to be stored or heads on or offshore due to reef structures etc, then usually you don't get the build up permanently (and erosion downstream), and you see like what happens at your spot where the sand builds gradually over summer in prevailing southerlies, and then a couple of really brutal NW fronts rip it a) offshore, and b) send it back to the south, before it all goes starts over again with a slow push onto shore and a roll along the shoreline in the prevailing southerlies again. kind of like the usual bank formation but on a bigger scale
contrast this with say tweed heads, where if there wasn't pumping of sand annually from south to north, the beach on the other side of the channel would be 1km wide after 10 years and the erosion around snapper/kirra and further north would be even more insane. they got relatively lucky with hillaries, and pinnaroo point just downstream, as well - although some will say that hillaries has totally stuffed trigg/scabs. personally i think freo port over a much longer time scale, plus beach stabilising and grooming, has done that.

here are the photos that surprised me as well, in order we have 2010,2011,2013,2014,2015 - all in March to try to keep it relevant. i think there was less sand last year than this year, but wasn't far off this year back in 2011.










Thread hijack complete! cheers