RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Steve, can you post the pics on here please. I remember Cloudbreak very fondly and it was def one of my best surf trips. Only cost me $990 all up as well minus beer money.

Tropical paradise, long lefts and they pay you to drink. What a magical place.

Any fishing, Steve?

Mate just got back said CB had some solid days but a little busy at times.

I took a light spinning rod Boo with 15lb braid and 30 fluoro leader and fished the reef edges with soft placcys. There was a marina being built around the corner that had a really nice new rock wall out on the reef edge. Usually after a few minutes a school of GT's would patrol the reef edge and I'd get horribly monstered in big visual strikes by GT's in the 10-15 kilo range. Landed a really nice bluefin trev in the 6 kilo range that was too dumb too find the reef. A few mixed reefies including a really nice coral trout. It was fun fishing if you did't mind donating lures to rampaging GT's. Saw tuna schools working on the way to CB and would've liked to stop and throw stickbaits at them. Looked like 30-50lb yellowfin tuna.

Crowd-wise I was actually shocked at how uncrowded it was. I was expecting days like Ulus with frothing roosters everywhere. Biggest crowd we surfed in was 15-20. We took some advice and surfed a bit later to let the early morning Tavi crew surf and go back for brekkie. Mostly we surfed a 4-5hr sesh between 9-2. The other noteworthy thing was how kooky and ancient the crowd was. I'd say 75-80% of the people out there were just bobbing around dodging sets just to tick Cloudbreak off the list. I saw very, very few competent surfers in the lineup, less than a handful who really knew what they were doing, of them mostly the Tavi lifeguards and boatmen.
No judgement there, it's an incredibly complex, changeable, challenging and intimidating wave and lineup.
We surfed it alone, with absolutely nobody else out on several occasions, including one stone cold perfect session in light rain when the wind went dead offshore then dropped right out and gorged ourselves on oil slick glassy 4-6ft tubes.

Gee wiss mate I would have thought you would keep that sort of information about cloudbreak close to your chest so that you be able to enjoy those uncrowded conditions over again, instead of spreading the word in an open forum, just the way I look at the world.

Yeh, I hear guys in the surf talk about CB and maxing Padang Padang etc.. And they pull off 4ft Sydney waves and I think about the old Tick off the list thing and have a chuckle.

My mate did say there were a handful of blokes who pretty much dominated the line up with superior skills. He's not a bad surfer.

shaunmorrison wrote:Gee wiss mate I would have thought you would keep that sort of information about cloudbreak close to your chest so that you be able to enjoy those uncrowded conditions over again, instead of spreading the word in an open forum, just the way I look at the world.

Because no one has ever heard of cloud break? And there are approx 250000 people reading this forum?

What the fcuk is going on?

Surf every day in Sep, nary a nor-easter and it goes on into Oct. I've been home over a week and haven't seen a nor-easter yet. Waves every day.
Surely with this godzilla El Nino we should be getting our eyelids peeled back daily.

I don't believe in this monster el Nino.

Looks like the Noreasters could be back for this weekend tho? ruining a bit of swell on the way

Whats your read on it Boo?

I believe most of it but don't think it will be felt similarly on the coast. I just think all that energy in the upper ocean has to go somewhere.
My call is a horrific el Nino pattern until mid January then a big monsoon season bringing us back to slightly positive SOI.

Anywhere south of you and west of longreach to be in a generational drought that forces hundreds of families off their land, with banks selling to corporate farmers.

steve shearer wrote:What the fcuk is going on?

Surf every day in Sep, nary a nor-easter and it goes on into Oct. I've been home over a week and haven't seen a nor-easter yet. Waves every day.
Surely with this godzilla El Nino we should be getting our eyelids peeled back daily.

september was really pretty damn good surfing.
southerly change tomorrow with a new swell.

'13 and '14 sucked mega so I'm already calling it a great spring.

how good's the S change? our house just dropped about 3 degrees in an hour.

My kitchen curtains act as my southerly signifier

alakaboo wrote:I believe most of it but don't think it will be felt similarly on the coast. I just think all that energy in the upper ocean has to go somewhere.
My call is a horrific el Nino pattern until mid January then a big monsoon season bringing us back to slightly positive SOI.

Anywhere south of you and west of longreach to be in a generational drought that forces hundreds of families off their land, with banks selling to corporate farmers.

Barely any spring time thunderstorms down in Sydney so far.

Been some nice Sth swell with NE winds lately. Clean morning surf. My lats are still sore from Monday haha, haven't paddled so much for at least a year.

Yeah and so far no crazy October winds.

--++sunstroke++-- wrote:

Barely any spring time thunderstorms down in Sydney so far.

famous last words.