Survival Surfing...

I went for a surf over at a spot called The Other Side or better known as T.O.S. and is one of the more interesting surfs I have had here. There was some swell but this was more of a fact finding mission than anything else.

First you have to drive to Southport and go to the end of the road to a place called The Spit which is on the edge of the Gold Coast Seaway and is about 300 meters wide and has legendary tidal currents, has heavy boat traffic, huge rock walls, and of course; sharks. Running across the channel is the Southport Sand Pumping station that keeps the flow of sand going along it's natural path, from south to north, as needed which is pumped by a huge jet powered generator and runs in thirty minute intervals. From the south jetty you can either take a boat that will charge you six bucks to ferry you across or you can do it the manual method and paddle across. I chose the manual way today. Actually, I had no choice the boat guy is independent and some days he just does not work today being one of them.
I got there about 6:30 and was suited up and contemplating the paddle across when another guy showed up and asked if I was going to go for it. I told him that I was and he told me to hold on and he would paddle with me, "to give us a 50/50 with the sharkies" as he put it.
We grabbed our boards and headed down the jetty to a suitable spot. You have to see which way the tide is going and start your paddle at the appropriate end of the wall, if you don't judge it right you will get sucked into the bay which is really bad or get sucked out to sea which is really, really, really bad. Just out to sea from the channel is considered one of the sharkiest places on this coast.
We got to the wall and climbed down the Volkswagen sized rocks to the base and onto the sofa sized, slippery rocks, this is where it gets hairy. You have to time the powerful wave like surge that runs along the along the rock wall, and jump off just as a wave passes as to clear the jagged table sized, barnacle covered rocks just under the surface without putting a hole in the bottom of your surf board.
After that the premise is easy, paddle like hell and try not to get eaten, sucked out to sea, or run over by a Bay Liner or snagged by a fishing line.
When we got to the other side we reversed the order, scramble up the table rocks, to the sofa rocks, to the Volkswagen rocks. Welcome to "The Other Side.
From here it was a 250 meter hike through a dense forest with lots of snake and spider holes on the ground and sharp burrs which were just great with my bare feet.

Finally the surf spot.

The spot is one of the best beach breaks in Australia and although today was ordinary it was fun with chest to head high peaks up and down the beach. The focal point and creating force of the spot is the Southport sand pump outlet. This thing pukes sand at a rate of ten minutes every thirty minutes. The result is beautiful, shifting sandbars up the beach for about a mile. It is a heavy wave with a shallow bottom that does not take much swell to break, actually any swell over six to eight feet will render it too dangerous and I have been warned not to surf it on a heavy swell.

The best thing about this spot is the isolation. It is just minutes from the spectacle Surfer's Paradise but is about as remote as you can get. From the water you can hardly think that you are in the modern age.

The return trip was the same as the trip over except for a mis-timed exit from the water to the rocks which netted me good cuts on my hands, legs, back and feet. It is good that it happened on the way out as I bled at a decent rate and would not want the attention from The Man in the Grey Suit.

Please excuse the second hand photos as my camera has died, I am working on it...