Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries:
With the autumn we've been having it is easy to get drawn into a false sense of security about how comfortable it is to live in Dunedin. This first polar blast of the season has cleaned out any of those misconceptions. And it brought a giant swell that unfortunately arrived with some pretty dire winds. The winds rendered the swell spectacular, but made it very hard to find a corner that was holding it properly. There would have been some for sure, but not in my travels this past week.
The plummeting temperatures, and cold wind that can cut right through sheet metal, don't help to foster much stoke either. It's one of those swells that will rearrange our coastline. We lost another pole, the sandbags took a beating, but more importantly the great sand bank lottery is in motion. Let's hope a few old favourite surf banks return ... and fingers crossed the Tennis Court Super Banks manage to survive. How good have they been? A real high tide gem for St Clair.
This week I'm travelling up north and doing my best to weave in a few waves along the way. Fingers crossed.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS Wednesday looks likely to see the peak of the next phase of swell which will arrive around 3pm. For the big swells down south we get excited when the energy blows through 12,000 on the scale. At least one forecast has Wednseday's swell as packing a whopping 23,561 of energy. The 16-second period confirms this will be a whopper. Brace yourself.
Box of Light is made possible thanks to these visionaries: