RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Sometimes you see some good ones at Kirra with no one around and paddle out and realise quickly you have no chance of holding position and gotta hope you get one quickly.

Apparently the sweep wasn’t too bad that sesh though.

It’s funny looking at it today. Obviously you have the same overarching bathymetric set up but it’s breaking way further out. Used to go out between the rocks in front of the weather shed before the groin and it still used to cut right through there for many years. There was a rock it used to break on as an indicator level with the shed further out. I guess it breaks on that now days.

buddy wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 22, 2024 10:46 pm

Sometimes you see some good ones at Kirra with no one around and paddle out and realise quickly you have no chance of holding position and gotta hope you get one quickly.

Apparently the sweep wasn’t too bad that sesh though.

Sweep was pretty bad- you could paddle against it, but it was definitely moving.

Slater picked the best waves out of it, but there were a lot of wash-throughs, a lot of close-outs, a lot not hitting the bank right.

His edited highlights clip makes it look a lot better than it was for the rec surfer.

He was up the top near Big Groyne when he got that wave- kind of almost behind Big Groyne.

It didn't seem anything unusual to me- a sneaky lunch-time sesh when the surf was kind of maxing out and the crowd was taking a pause- as Buddy knows, you get those little windows up there.

Well there you go

Is Kirra capable of breaking anymore as it used to before the early 2000s sand dredging that helped shape superbank but compromised Kirra in the process?

Ive only surfed kirra a handful of times since then. But never seen it break anywhere near as good as it used to late 1980s onwards. It never used to section out or shut down. Remember it being a mechanically near-perfect wave. Second groin was even better.

It has been very sectiony lately. It breaks a bit further out so I guess the banks are less stabilised by coastal structures. That may be nonsense. There were some Kirra days in 2013 and 2014 when it was lined up and firing with long classic Kirra. As good as anything I saw in the 1970s.

On it’s day now (rare) the barrels can be arguably better for the advanced surfers, but it will never have that perfect hug the coast point break style again where it broke at a speed that most waves were makeable.

Unless they stop pumping sand for many years.

It sort of got reasonably close a few years ago in that big erosion event but I think all the continued pumping and storm bars affected how the swell lined up further out.

Correct.
The technical term is the sand supply now exceeds the headland dimension and the peel angle has been altered.
It’s mostly a close out with some insane makeable barrels.
Not the same wave as the Kirra of 74-2002

After the big groin was added there was a gutter right along the point. No waves broke. Then a big left peaky bank appeared way out level with where the second groin was later built. They held the Queensland Titles there one year. MP was going straight down on his little MOTE square tail and going straight back up to belt the lip.

I lived with some mates on Musgrave street, right on the beachfront in about 1981. Walk across the road with board under arm and paddle straight out.
We never surfed anywhere else except Burleigh and D-bah. Didn't even know about waves at Snapper or Green Mount.
The wave was hollow and perfect and uncrowded early. I mean, you could paddle out in the dark then when it started getting light enough to see other surfers, there would be a few, but it didn't matter.

How can you be there and not know about Snapper and Greenmount?
Back in the day Greenmount would still occasionally break better than Kirra.
Similar to footage today if there was good sand.
Snapper used to end at Little Marley. Not many people took off in front of the rocks out the end in those days.
Rainbow Bay used to break like Tea Tree at Noosa. Waves rolled right into the bay.

Beanpole wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 24, 2024 3:02 pm

How can you be there and not know about Snapper and Greenmount?

Just didn’t need to know about it I guess, why drive somewhere when you can walk across the road.
We only went to D-bah when the swell was small, and only to Burleigh because of its legendary name. It was good but crowded, went a few times out of curiosity then never went back.

Dude…if you had to drive from Kirra to Greenmount you’d be wasting petrol. You can literally be sitting on the groin and looking straight at it. It’s a kilometre away. Much more consistent than Kirra. The fact that it’s now potentially one wave from Snapper to the start of Kirra tells you how close it is. Anyway..good on you for getting Kirra working consistently.

I’ve only surfed Burleigh a couple of times. In fact I’ve surfed Noosa way more times. Pretty much had swell for everywhere from Currumbin to The Pass worked out back in the day. Based on which of the Fido Reefs were breaking off Cook Island. Burleigh was alien territory though. Guys from the south Gold Coast rarely ventured north and visa versa. Very rare to see the Nielsen Bros or Peter Drouyn surfing Kirra.

I can’t explain it, it just was.

“Didn't even know about waves at Snapper or Green Mount.”

mm, didn’t you ever look seaward when you travelled the short distance between Kirra and Duranbah?

Good tweed valley bud floating around I imagine.

foamy wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 24, 2024 4:48 pm

“Didn't even know about waves at Snapper or Green Mount.”

mm, didn’t you ever look seaward when you travelled the short distance between Kirra and Duranbah?

I’m reluctant to pick this apart foamy, it was over 40 years ago, and the year was 82, not 81 as I stated.
There was a shitload of cyclone swell that summer, starting with cyclone Abigail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981%E2%8 ... one_season

It just seemed to keep coming, it was a golden time I remember fondly. Two carloads of us drove up there from Sth. Oz on a whim, with a couple of short stops at Angourie, the Pass and finally arriving t Burleigh, which was pumping. We slept,in our cars at Burleigh right at the beach for a couple of days, surfing all the time. We found a deserted house at Burleigh which was earmarked for demo, stayed there for a few days until D-day, then bumped into an old friend from SA who was living in “the breakers” at Kirra. He said there were flats to to rent at the breakers at $45/week, so we moved there.
At the end of summer the surf eventually subsided into its usual shitty QLD. doldrums which was the signal for me to drive non stop back to Cactus for some real waves. Fun while it lasted.

Sounds awesome mm. Living the dream.