Surfing Waves

Hi everyone !

I am desperate to get my FIRST barrel in 7 years of surfing. Ok, barrels only happens 2-3 times a year where I used to live, and I never had the chance to be there on the right day . And when I got to travel the French west coast it was always summer and there were no barrels. That's it, now I am obsessed with barrels, I NEED to get one as soon as possible !

I live in Bondi Beach, Sydney. My question is : what are the places around Sydney most likely to have barrels ? Could you tell me about the exact conditions required for barrels to form here ? I mean swell height, direction, period, qnd then wind, tide, etc.

Thank you very much

Spring and summer will be a tricky one for barrels. Not impossible, just not as easy as winter.

Bondi barrels occasionally, Tamarama and Bronte more often. Maroubra barrels in monster swell.
Any easterly ground swell will do the trick. In summer, it WILL be offshore in the morning and then go onshore around lunchtime. So the dawnie is the best time for the barrel. Forget about it in the afternoon windswell.

The downside to all these available barrels is that unless you are stunningly good, you wont get one at the city beaches as the locals will be all over it.

Time to get travelling.

Thanks mate !

I know it will be tough in the summer, I'll try to get away on weekends... Where should I drive outside of Sydney to get summer barrels ? If you know some guys looking for surfing mates to share the fuel, I'm im

Shark Island at Cronulla, or Ours at Botay Bay Heads....

Surf there only if you're a blackbelt in Ju Jitsu... or EXTREMELY talented at surfing...

Otherwise, head out of the City, and there are plenty of barrelling reefs without the agressive locals.

Out of the city, alright. But where ? North ? South ? Wollongong ?

Either direction and you're sweet - just depends on how far you travel.

Every coastal town will have a few local reefs that will barrell in the right conditions.

Have a look on Wannasurf.com.

I'm still only game to surf beachies - but even the beach breaks at low tide give short closing out barrels in groundswell conditions.

BUT as dbbb mentioned, over summer you're pretty much stuck with short period windswell unless we get a prolonged southerly weather system, or a tropical cyclone off Queensland.

Desperate

Goodluck on your barrelsearch

Bondi usually get dumpers, if you want barrel go Tamarama, it's reef break; Just be careful, I always but myself surfing there :S

not sure about Bronte, never surfed there before, but I did went to check out the waves over there once, looks great

My friend did catch few barrels @ Bondi before he went back to Japan...

I've seen guys get barreled at Bondi. It all depends on the size you are after. If you are skilled and quick enough, you can get barreled by three to four foot waves, just takes a bit of crouching.

Thibb wrote:I've seen guys get barreled at Bondi. It all depends on the size you are after. If you are skilled and quick enough, you can get barreled by three to four foot waves, just takes a bit of crouching.

last summer i saw a guy on a longboard doing a 2ft barrel, lol...

offshore wind....drag your hand....you will get one......be the wave.

I see guys getting barreled in Sydney all the time, any beach any size even on the tiniest days you'll find them getting shacked in the shore break. Freaks! The trick is to take off when you think it's closing out, take off deeper, look for sucky waves etc. etc. You'll eventually develop a sense of when it will barrel, just like those freaks have...... but I haven't got it either.

The best beach in Sydney to get barreled on is probably South Narabeen, but call your chiropractor before you go Spiney as it's f***ing shallow and really is just a glorified close out. Not my cup of tea really.

Aloha wrote:The best beach in Sydney to get barreled on is probably South Narabeen, but call your chiropractor before you go Spiney as it's f***ing shallow and really is just a glorified close out. Not my cup of tea really.

Thanks everyone for your answers. But Aloha, tell me more about the chiropractor thing ? I was seriously wounded last january while snowboarding in France, I broke 6 vertebras and now it still hurts though I got better... Anyway, I have to be careful, the one thing I don't want to do is hit the bottom. Of course I know I should forget about barreling at all, but isn't there any way you can get a barrel in deeper waters ?

Spiney wrote: the one thing I don't want to do is hit the bottom. Of course I know I should forget about barreling at all, but isn't there any way you can get a barrel in deeper waters ?

Plenty of places will barrel into a reasonable amount of water, but it'll be a heavy wave, and you'll still possibly hit the bottom. Most of the barrelling spots will be on shallow reefs, and look like this...



Thats just south of here, earlier this year
A friend of mine took the shot (of his friend) and, yes, the guy made it. But look at those rocks....

Strangely, I seem to see less beachie barreling days than I'd expect
But the small barrel on the beachie is your best bet (which 6' of inflexible me doesnt fit in...)

drowningbitbybit wrote:But the small barrel on the beachie is your best bet (which 6' of inflexible me doesnt fit in...)

One of the rare positive aspects of being very small : you get smaller boards that cost less and you fit in tiny barrels

Being small is very good for surfing, a compact shape makes it easier to balance and they say it's easier to generate more power with body torque.

Yeah generally if it's barreling it means it's shallow in that spot. If it's not shallow then it's a very fast powerful wave, and as DBBB said you'll probably hit the bottom if that lip clips you too...

South Narrabeen is very sketchy for that reason, it's deep water just a few meters offshore and then hits the shallow shore break, people often practice getting barreled there but I've had some close calls there so I avoid it. Although it barrels, 9/10 times you won't make it out of the barrel as it's closing out.

Oh man you gotta love YouTube, here's a vid of Southy. Where it closes out on some of these it's probably only knee deep to waist high. As I mentioned earlier you can see they aren't makable most of the time:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCS6jtGcrg

And when you are done watching that, have a look at the winter before last South Narra looking like Hawaii. These guys are nuts!

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=R-GwewWuL ... re=related

^^ that wave looks pretty bad. was waiting for someone to break their board for ages lol. would be ok for sponging on if you like fun closeouts but surfing looks dodgy.

here's some big waves @ Tamarama back in 06

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=tFj0oGPB2F0