A day at the Dump

20th June 2003

It's been going off its brain here the last few days, with the biggest swell hitting the "South" so far this Winter, on Friday. It was so big it was impossible or should I say unwise to go out at our usual favourite spot, as it was breaking more than a quarter of a mile out. There are not many places one can surf when the swell gets this big with the tide being so low as it was. A lot of the younger and heroic surfers go out at "bullies", which was really thumping in. Our mate Terry Towelling was with us when we were checking it out and taking some pics, he said he'd never seen it so big! There was no wind at all and there were these big blitzkriegers charging out of the early morning sea mist, jacking up as they hit the reef and looking just like the "Pipeline" in reverse ...quite impressive and teasingly beautiful.

Bullies

The Dump

With the threat of strong westerly winds forecast we decided to go out at the "Dump", which is situated about a mile west of Bullies. It's one of very few places available to surf down south when it gets as big as this.
Terry and I were lucky and had it at its best early, before the crowd turned up since the word obviously got around and the multitudes descended upon the place. The girl decided to stay on the beach and take some photos, as she felt the conditions were beyond her capabilities. Although the shorebreak isn't as life threatening like Bullies, sometimes it can be a bit of a bugger getting out. We launched ourselves to the left-hand side of the break, with myself leading the way and the Towelling right behind me. We had waited for a lull but wouldn't you know it, as soon as we neared the impact zone a big set came through. I obviously copped a few on the head and got hammered back towards the shore, while the Towelling rocketed past me on his more buoyant board and made it quite easily out the back. Eventually I joined him in jockeying to find the right position out the back.

Even though the Dump is a reef break it can be fickle. Sometimes the waves hit the reef and peel quite nicely from right to left. And other times a wave will come in and break very ordinary. I guess the tide height and wave direction has a lot to do with that. Either way, if any wave comes through at say overhead size it usually closes right out. There is a left hander nearby, but it's a much shorter ride and is neither appealing from the beach or out there, but it does beat the alternative, which is no surfing at all. Nevertheless both breaks can get very crowded when all the other alternatives are out of the question.

sequence

The first wave I caught was one of the bigger ones and I thought it had a reasonable shape to it. And although it started to peel from the left as it usually does, it suddenly turned nasty just as I finished my bottom turn and hammered me. I tried to paddle back out from where I was dragged to but I was caught in the usual westerly drift and after about 5 minutes I gave up and caught a wave in, only to relaunch myself further down the beach. This time I made it out the back quite easily, just in time to see the Towelling take off on a very similar wave. I didn't see him again for another ten minutes, and although he never got caught in the drift like I did, he said he'd had a struggle getting out through the shorebreak again.

For the next three-quarters of an hour or so we managed to get some good rides between us and just as we were starting to get too comfortable a rogue set appeared out of the blue. We started paddling for the horizon like crazy to get out of harm's way, as the wave continued on its way, feathering and threatening to break. As it was almost upon us I remember thinking to myself, "this is going to be a bit of a damn inconvenience if it breaks now", because it was going to give us both one hell of a hiding. Luckily we both made it up and over the top, as it broke a half a second later, cleaning up all and sundry who had been sitting inside.

After that little bit of drama we both caught a few more reasonable rides and eventually came in. Looking from the beach after we got changed it wasn't hard to realise that we had had the best of it. The tide had come in, making almost every wave a closeout and the break had become really overcrowded.

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Photos by Ron Taylor & Sibylle Martens