old kirra

[marauding mullet]

Recent stuff about crowds at Snapper especially during the Quicksilver Pro, got me reminiscing about my brief 3 month stay up there in 1982. Some of my fondest memories, fcuk I'm glad I surfed the Goldy back then.
January 1982, myself and 5 mates saw a weather report in Adelaide, indicating a cyclone brewing off southern Qld.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, none of us had ever been to Qld. so we piled into 2 cars, and a day or so later we pulled into 2 parking spaces front and centre at Burleigh.
It was pumping, lines all the way to the horizon, cyclone Abigail had done her thing right on time.
The cars didn't move for 3 days, we lived in them and surfed Burleigh. It was crowded but, not by todays standards.

Then we bumped into some guys we knew who put us onto a vacant flat at Kirra for $40/week, right on the foreshore on Musgrave street, almost directly opposite the wave.
The swell seemed to last forever, a few weeks anyway, then another one came, and as things happen we all ended up getting jobs and sticking around, you just couldn't leave waves like that.

Kirra was nowhere near as crowded as Burleigh.
We would paddle out in complete darkness in the mornings, and wouldn't be able to tell how many others were out in the lineup until it got light enough to look around, normally another dozen or so but that number quickly rose as the day went on.
After a few months the surf had settled into it's normal Qld. routine and I got sick of that and was the first to go home to S.A.
I remember on high tide you could get washed onto the rocks down the line on your way in. I was really shocked to see it a couple of years ago, the amount of sand at Kirra.
Beautiful wave, the odd broken board on heavier days.
Haven't got much in the way of pics, nobody really was much into photography or could afford a camera, but got a couple. Pics were taken when the waves weren't so good, hardly anyone out.

[Hatchnam]

1982............Kirra was nowhere near as crowded as Burleigh.
We would paddle out in complete darkness in the mornings, and wouldn't be able to tell how many others were out in the lineup until it got light enough to look around, normally another dozen or so.

and by the end of the 80's that number was more like 40-50 out in the line up before daylight.

[Trev]

1982............Kirra was nowhere near as crowded as Burleigh.
We would paddle out in complete darkness in the mornings, and wouldn't be able to tell how many others were out in the lineup until it got light enough to look around, normally another dozen or so.

and by the end of the 80's that number was more like 40-50 out in the line up before daylight.

Too true.
The same at Snapper. I used to drive down from Brisbane and paddle out in the dark outside the rock and there's be a dozen or so dark shapes there. Already jockying for position.

[steve shearer]

the best

[Trev]

I remember driving down one Saturday and there was no surf anywhere (maybe early 90's) and just a tiny wave about 1' high peeling across the front of Kirra. So I paddled out. Came in about 4 hours later by which time it was 1½ to 2 times overhead. Even then there were only about a dozen out. Caught everyone by surprise.
The only time I've been in the water when a swell arrived.

[Hatchnam]

when it was working, the second groin was better. ridiculously perfect. mind bending perfection.

[Trev]

when it was working, the second groin was better. ridiculously perfect. mind bending perfection.

The second groyne didn't exist when I was learning to surf, but I've heard that about it. Just never seen it doing anything.

[Hatchnam]

it didn't work all the time. it was a now-and-then pheonomena. but when it did, it was thicker, faster, rounder, with even more grunt. prob surfed 2nd groin about 4 or so times? but fking hell it was rad when it happened.

[Beanpole]

Late Feb or early March 1982 got the longest barrel ever out at the main break. Popped out in front of the second groin. Just before I went to Sri Lanka I left Sydney. Dropped everything I owned at my mums and thought I'd paddle out on the old MP I had. It had been gathering dust on the balcony of the terrace in Surry Hills for 18 months with bugger all use.

[Nick Carroll]

got the longest barrel I've had in Oz at second groin in 1986. it was crazy, a perfectly angled swell. Had a dozen or so 10 second barrels but this one went close to twice that. I remember just sitting in it, adjusting, looking around, going 'fcuk!', just sorta keeping going. Went past a couple friends, waving at em. First groin that day was six feet and absolutely square, it was a national club contest day, and surfing it with three other guys was just a massive highlight, huge spitting tubes.

[Hatchnam]

Yeah. 2nd groin was nuts! Easily as, or if not more perfect than any indo reef. Mechanically perfect.

Trying to remember the exact year the old Kirra went to shit? About 13-15 yrs ago ?

[crabmeat thompson]

I surfed Kirra in about 2001 (maybe early 2002), little groyne. Little groyne was solid 6 with bigger sets ... That was pretty much the last time I remember it being insane on the membrane.

The brothers neilson jnr series was on up at big groyne on a saturday morning.

I remember I was doing a daily surf report for Realsurf's main page. And I didn't lodge a report until 10:30am ... nek minut I was getting a fired up email from Gordon Merchant asking where the hell was my report.

I remember laughing and saying, Gordo ... if a E/SE swell is forecast and my report isn't in by 7:30, you know to get out there, old son. haha

[Clif]

why would Gordon Merchant want your report? And why would he assume it was appropriate to personally email you to get one done?

[crabmeat thompson]

He emailed the Don and he forwarded it along to me.

You'd haveta ask Gordo the rest.

[el rancho]

got the longest barrel I've had in Oz at second groin in 1986. it was crazy, a perfectly angled swell. Had a dozen or so 10 second barrels but this one went close to twice that. I remember just sitting in it, adjusting, looking around, going 'fcuk!', just sorta keeping going. Went past a couple friends, waving at em. First groin that day was six feet and absolutely square, it was a national club contest day, and surfing it with three other guys was just a massive highlight, huge spitting tubes.

like Nias

[Beanpole]

I always used to think it was like two rulers held together at one end and closing as you pushed down on the other end....but going on forever like that. Or a pair of scissors closing but never closing.
First time I surfed Kirra was in about 1971 or 72. It was a club contest against Kirra but they pulled out the B Team for Kingscliff
Tommy Peterson was in it but MP was out there anyway. Almost exactly like the MOTE footage.

Caught about one wave in the heat and got dropped in on by someone on our own team

[Trev]

First time I surfed Kirra was in about 1971 or 72.

Geez mate.
You're showing your age.

[steve shearer]

two thousand one is considered the last proper Kirra year.


its last hurrah was an apocalyptic day in June two thousand three- the infamous 'weather bomb" swell.

The newly laid Superbank, ruled edged, shallow and dropping off into a still deep, sand depleted Coolangatta Bay- which ensured both maximum swell energy and a steep bathymetric profile on the bank- was roaring with close range energy in the six to ten foot range.

winds were cyclonic SW to S with flooding rain and the streetlights were on at midday. Sand was whipped onto the main street. You could barely walk with a board. By three pm it was almost dark. Throaty caverns, some of them unrideably thick were sending huge sand explosions out the back the whole length of the bank. Huge spit explosions from some of the sections were being shot into the sky.
Bottom of Coolie into Big Groyne was unfathomable. I saw someone....not sure who, standing twenty foot back in this .....thing......not like any wave I've seen before or since. It was hypnotically heavy, thick, perfect and unrelentingly long....the way the lip-line threw out...
I rode a six five channel bottom. I did three laps and didn't make a take-off.

There was maybe thirty or forty guys out the whole bank.

Next morning I surfed Lennox Point ten to twelve foot on a seven two Peter McCabe swallowtail. By the afternoon the low had moved on and a northerly wind came up and snuffed it.