I went out yesterday at point Moore in about a 13 - 15kn norwester and encounted conditions of lage rips 100m wide going south then five minutes later going north between the reef and the land.The backwash from these swells were causing the reef to stick out of the water .5m where usually they are just covered in water at low tide and then submerge them out of sight very rapidly.It added another edge to the experience.I ended up crashing the 15m and being unable to relaunch in the light winds got a lift back to shore with some fishermen(thanks you blokes). Geraldton had a massive tidal surge the night before, causing some minor flooding and filling the harbour and champion bay to overflowing in some areas

Yeah looks like it has travelled down the WA coast to affect our waters too.

I had just rocked up north of the old dunsborough boat ramp when a 1-1.5m surge of water just came belting through, minutes earlier it was dry sand and exposed rock.....what the. In the hour the tide had surged about 5 times, from sand to a few feet of water. There were some crazy waves and rips.


Freaky stuff.

holy crap thats a lot of tidal changes in such a small amount of time. It sure makes you think.....
The ocean so beautiful, so gracious and at the same time so ugly.

"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control stops with the shore."
BYRON Childe Harold 1818

Good on you Ian for helping those guys in trouble.
I'll bet it was the last method of rescue they were expecting!

If they do another Baywatch series, will you put your hand up for the part of kiteboard-saver dude?

.........................

Down at Albany, day after boxing day, cosy corner had tidal changes of roughly 0.5 metre up and down lasting roughly 30 minutes from top to bottom. Saw a few cycles in and out whilst we were there over some 3 hours.
We waded out to a big rock, the part of the rock we were jumping off alternated between well underwater to high and dry whilst we were using it. Where we waded out was waist deep then ankle deep soon after. Further up the coast that afternoon, looking down from the cliffs, we saw a huge expanse of reef exposed like it was a big low tide, but it was many hours before low tide was due so I think it was something to do with the tsunami ripple effect.

If you want to see a computer animated simulation of the boxing day tsunami, go to this address:

You can see why WA got so little effect, the main forces clearly spread mostly East and West.