It’s hard to say if it was the drizzly, overcast weather, or cautious swell forecasts in the wake of repeated disappointment that kept the masses at bay on the morning of Sunday March 7. While many slumbered warm in bed, sobering up and shaking off the after effects of long weekend binge drinking, West facing surf breaks across the state awoke to the ocean’s first pulses.

By sunrise some of the new WSW swell had found its way into the Gulf of St. Vincent, and for the first time in months glassy shoulder high waves were unloading onto reefs and beaches along the fickle Mid Coast. The main beneficiary of the first hour or so of incoming tide appeared to be 3 Poles, with only a handful out there at dawn and the thought of duckdiving obviously a bit much for many hardcore regulars. Big sets that peeled left and right out front of the stinkpipe closed out Anzacs and broke wide at U-Turns, while trickling lazily through Seaford. By 7:30am The Trough had earned a crowd typical of weekends or any day it gets bigger than one foot, but there were plenty of less populated and better options.

Up at South Port, the swell of the year had managed to coincide with the Senior Surf Lifesaving state titles, and more than half the beach was roped off as a contest area. Rumour has it organsiers applied to Onkaparinga City Council close the entire beach to non-competitors – but didn’t feel any one that surfed was important enough to be told. Given the heavy-handedness with which such “rules” have been enforced in past years, it’s surprising that next to no tales of confrontation arose. It was fortuitous that the best waves rolled through the left hander at the Rivermouth between 7 and 8am before the event, the bliss of uncrowded shoulder high walls only interrupted occasionally by the champ on the P.A. System calling for “loud inhalers”. Sadly, nobody got to enjoy waves at The Hump or Ray’s Right ( AKA the Mid Coast Superbank ) through low tide on the biggest day both breaks have seen in months.

Offshore ESE winds persisted all day courtesy of a slow moving low pressure system, and saw rarely surfed spots like Snakes get a guernsey – alongside lesser known spots further down the peninsula. The swell did fade during the morning as the tide drained out, but the incoming tide delivered a brief pulse to selected spots between Hallett Cove and Willunga. By late afternoon conditions were not a patch on the dawn delight, but still rewarding enough for the last platoon of wave starved troops to plunder. The early hours of Monday morning brought a gusty SW change, destroying all evidence of Autumn’s first swell with 30 knot squalls and chopped up seas. It was a slap in the face for eternal optimists hoping for a re-run of the previous day, and a reminder that days like that are all too few and far between.

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