King Waka's Korner: Postcard from Western Australia 2011

Its that time of the year again, do we head for Indo or back over to Western Australia for large winter swells? I received this postcard from my old mate Eric Bridges just recently and he supplied me with a few lines and photos from his recent trip over to the Magaret River region of Western Australia..

Margaret River Glass-Off.......grab a wine or longneck of beer
and sit down and enjoy the show!

Northpoint Fun

Hey Adam…just back from Margaret River and what a trip…on Friday the 6^th May 2011 this huge clean swell arrived.

I went to Cowaramup Bay as Margaret’s main break was massive.

Surfed south point at day break with a couple of others and got myself in all sorts of trouble when I tried an over ambitious bottom turn on 6 feet of walling wave which shut down on me and broke my legrope.

Had to swim down the point with 6 foot sets of white-water driving me and board onto the rocks.

Got a good healthy hiding and some great bruising but board was sort of Ok so retied legrope and paddled over to Huzzas which was also breaking at 4 – 5 foot with some great rights into herring bay.

Next I went to north point to watch 30 of the local Big Wave riders doing their stuff in real Solid conditions. You have the pictures so you tell me how big it was. The locals were calling it 8 foot, but as you know sandgropers have HUGE feet.

So at 11 am on Friday the 6^th may this huge set comes through breaking out at third rock a 100 yards further out than the pack and it just cleaned them all up. Not bad for an 8 foot wave ??

Three unlucky guys got washed around the north side of north point, not a great place to be one young and very fit guy who had lost his board was forced to come in on the vertical wall of rocks and got some broken toes and bad cuts.

Two lid riders used their booger boards to bounce their way across rocks while being hammered by 8 feet of white water. Like being hit by a mack truck.

In my 41 years of surfing I have never seen such an amazing piece of luck and made the effort to shake their hands and suggest they buy a lottery ticket cause they were lucky lads.

At the same time as this was going on down at main break Margaret’s one of the local big wave riders was being dragged 2 hundred yards under water by his legrope attached to his 9 foot pin tail and he told me that he had had an “anxious” moment when he could not release his leggie until he ended up in the lagoon. This was not ya normal 8 foot set as it was also a 10 wave set that really did the damage all along the coast.

Mate never underestimate the power of the wild west.

eric