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The swell hit quick and early. For at least one world champ, it hit hard.

The Great Autumn, Part Two: Gold Coast Prelude In the week leading up to NSW’s bomb Saturday, coasts further north were surreal. Sharkies, Tuesday morning. Link copied to clipboard It probably shouldn’t have been this good. But it was. “At the start of the week I wasn’t thinking it was going to be insane,” says Andrew Shield. “But the way it went, the conditions and the sand everywhere were so good.” Shieldsy’s been surfing and shooting the southern Queensland and northern NSW coasts pretty much forever. He has a finely tuned eye for wind and wave. On Tuesday last week, he che...

The Great Autumn, Part One: Weekend From Heaven When the wind went offshore early on Saturday, everywhere south of Coffs went a bit nuts. Photo: Steen Barnes @16images Link copied to clipboard Offshore and Pumping. That’s what Surfline forecaster Ben Macartney told us would happen, and well, it did. This has to be one of the great autumns, especially in central and southern NSW. Things just keep falling into place. The past weekend just made the point for us in most emphatic fashion. Not everywhere was this full on, but you hunt what you hunt. Hayden Blair in the belly of the thing, Solande...

The Breaker Yep, finally pumping. Photo: Steve Arklay Sean Doherty Link copied to clipboard Mid-last week, Surfline forecaster Katie Jackson identified an explosive weather phenomenon — extra-tropical moisture merging with a cold Antarctic low under Madagascar, and moving east armed with super-low central pressure and intensifying winds.  The resulting swell struck all Australia’s SW-facing coastlines, first southern WA, then rapidly hammering everywhere else with scary power levels. But its real focus ended up being western Victoria. The guns came out, the guns were snapped, and one sur...

The Warm-Up Swell If you’re a Sydney surfer, this is the autumn that keeps on giving. If you’re a visiting CT pro, you’re probably in shock. Too many waves are never enough. Down the beach at Narrabeen. Photo: Matt Dunbar Nick Carroll Link copied to clipboard On Saturday April 10, all the pro surfers who hadn’t already left Newcastle did so, heading south to Narrabeen, next stop on their wacky four event Aussie parade. Just a few hours earlier, completely independent of this shift, a big, slightly messy low pressure system headed east into the southern Tasman Sea.