Surf casualities - creepy surf breaks

[chrisb]

In addition to the recent tragic rock fishing casualties an American tourist has gone missing at Tallows. See link below.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/us-swimmer-mi ... 3632299216

I like surfing at Byron, especially in the Bay & around Broken Head.

However, Tallows/Sunny Corner has always creeped me out. I always feel uncomfortable surfing in the water there. Maybe it's because of the towering adjacent cliffs and their shadow; maybe it's the fact that over past decades surfers and swimmers have simply vanished there without a trace.

Does anyone else feel the same, either about Tallows or other particular surf spots Let's hear your stories.

[Trev]

Only ever surfed Tallows a couple of times, back in the late 60's.
Scary then, too.
And former Qld Premier, Wayne Goss tells a story of nearly drowning there one time on his wave ski. He was/is? a competent wave ski rider and pretty surf smart but the conditions caught him out. He was lucky. Obviously others haven't been.
Never liked Fingal either (sorry Fong).

[munch]

Go the BEARS!.

[steve shearer]

the danger of Tallows with any kind of southerly component in the swell is that the rip will take people out and then carry them around Cape Byron along perilous cliff faces.

It makes a mockery of the advice to "go out with the rip and then swim sideways against it'

No-one can swim back against that side-shore drift......and no-one except an uber-experienced rock-fisho could make a landing along the cliff face and survive.

It's at least a mile swim in rough open ocean water with plenty of sharks back around the corner of the Cape to Little Wategoes.

A truly dangerous situation a lot of the time.

PS the report said conditions were good.
In fact there was a small but significant pulse of SE groundswell occurring at the time.
A swimmer could be sucked out in that rip in a heartbeat and never seen again.

[oldman]

Haven't surfed there for a while, but yeah, I have felt a certain spooky thing going on.

Not sure what it is. Certainly what Steve says is easy to believe. Get a sharky vibe for sure.

And yet further south at Broken Head I just think it is paradise. That's probably why I don't surf Tallows that often.

[black duck]

Box Head and Umina Point
2 spots that creep me out. Water is often so murky you can't see your feet when sitting on your board. Too many fins and weird splashes.

River mouths in general, especially after heavy rain.

[Beanpole]

Paddled out at Box Head with a mate in the middle of winter just in time for about one wave before the sun sunk like a rock and we had to paddle in against the rip with only the lights on the distant shore for bearings. Hard to paddle with just two fingers in the water for fear of shark attack.

Back beach at Crescent does a good impersonation of Tallows in an even more spooky and hard to get to sort of way.

I also hate trying to get in at Lennox in the dark.

[munch]

Go the BEARS!

[otway1949]

Dalmeny doesn't normally do much to scare anyone, but the day it bobbed up a chomped in half seal through the break changed the vibe quickly and considerably.
Some days at Crackneck and the Zone can be spooksome especially knowing the walk back you'd have with only one leg
Cloudy bay in Tassie with plankton staining the waves blood red and big swirly bull kelp thingy swooshers in the face of the waves gave me the yips really quickly.

[Nick Carroll]

you know what is truly amazing about the Box --- nobody's ever been attacked by a shark there.

Waves are more dangerous than sharks one suspects.

Scared of Tallows? Fcuk me dead. Go to Cellito.

[steve shearer]

The lefthander at Elliston has a heavy vibe.

Fcukinghell that deep channel you get deposited into at the end of the ride feels like deaths cold fingers around your neck.

[chrisb]

Scared of Tallows? Fcuk me dead. Go to Cellito.

I first visited Cellito in 1989 and while setting up camp I noticed a helicopter buzzing around. I found out the next morning that some guy drowned there that day and that my next door neighbour in the campground helped drag the body out of the water. Up on the rocky headland there's also a plaque commemorating a rock fisherman who drowned there, age 19.

Despite this, Cellito never made me feel uncomfortable like Tallows does except for one solid day where off the rocks was the only way to the waves. My unease that day however was due to the wave size (above my ability) rather than rips or sharks.

[Grooter]

Flinders and particular Big Left can be a bit creepy.

Sitting 500 metres out from the cliffs, no beach just rocks and reef, in dark water can be a bit unnerving at times. Mainly because if anything happens to you, and no-one else is around, you're fcuked. Had the hair on the back of the neck stand up a few times sitting out there on my own, on bigger days in the middle of winter.

The Meanos break a bit further up is a bit more sketchy though, kid got bitten there a few years ago and some years before that another guy became a quadriplegic from a heavy wipeout on the reef.

[sean doherty]

Celito has become the Cactus of the east coast. Can't vouch for the ASL story, but just ask poor old Dave Sparkes who still goes clammy at the mention of Celito after being bumped there a few years back. 10 foot juvey white according to the bite radius on his board. that was of course at the lakemouth... open once a year, twice at best, you can almost be assured you're being sized up by something. thank god the 800 blokes from newcastle are there to keep the odds in your favour. lake openings aside, there's a general spookiness to most of the area... long beaches and big drop offs from the headlands. good fishing. but no one will convince me though that the bar in town isn't the worst of the lot. Half a mile out to sea with the second biggest saltwater lake in the country flushing out through it, long, deadwater paddle to the beach. had an old mate who worked in the fishing fleet who'd chum the lineup as he'd motor across the bar while guys were surfing it. "Just to make 'em think", he'd say.

As for Tallows, the spookiest vibe I get is leaving my car in the car park.

[philw]

oh god, if the fingal mentioned is the one in nelson bay, yeah spooky as hell. and a long walk, or hop...

catho area unnerves me. sitting out the back at ghosties on your own is just petrifying, maybe it's the vibe of dread around the serial killer wasteland you walk in through, but that place makes me feel like something bad is going to happen.

there's also an offshore reef around there that has on one occasion quite literally scared the sh-t out of me, the wave is heavy and you're so deep into whitey's lair he probably can't decide if he should bite you or mate with you, urggh. never again.

[Trev]

oh god, if the fingal mentioned is the one in nelson bay, yeah spooky as hell. and a long walk, or hop...

Nup. First headland south of D'bah. Just south of the mouth of the Tweed.

[roundhouse]

Boulders in QLD for sure. Sitting out there, the tip of the cape, middle of no where with so much wildlife around is very scary. I remember surfing waves and at the end you would be standing up tall to see if you can spot something floating around. Most times you'd spot a boulder down the line amoungst the sand and crap yourself. You can never feel at ease there.

[alakaboo]

don't want to turn this into a shark thread, but...

seen the big tiger that lives in the mouth of tallebudgera creek around burleigh probably 15 times, never been concerned at all.
got out of the water about 5 times in my life. fingal (the northern one), spookies (the angourie one) and central qld (not where you're thinking, but near there). maroubra twice during last (?) summer when the people were getting bitten... never seen so many baby whites!

scariest surrounds and break i've been to would have been marwun, south lombok.
fireweed everywhere, biggest bluebottles i've ever seen, strong currents pulling you towards a cliff, and we were there with far too little tide and way too much swell. came in to find our guides facing off with 5 dudes with machetes who wandered out of the jungle, all cut up and looking pretty shaken up.
gave them all the money and spare clothes we had on us and got out of there fast.

been bumped by a very big (probably) tiger in indo. never saw it coming or going, in crystal clear water, middle of the day. think that freaked me out more than anything