Byron Bay has several breaks to surf. From Belongil, through to the Wreck (I can’t remember the name of the boat) on Main beach and the mellow Clarkes beach to The Pass point break which is the favoured spot for the locals. Around the corner is Tallow beach but we already talked about that!
The rip along the whole beach front is amazingly strong, Ruth and I have never known anything like it. It drags you along the beach and diagonally out to sea, even standing still in the shallows can be difficult. The waves along the front also tend to be quite dumpy but deceivingly powerful. One day Ruth and I went body surfing and out of nowhere a much more powerful set came in that took us towards the shore before pounding us down in the shallows. I got rag-dolled at one point and even spun round underwater so that I could see the underwater barrel – it was beautiful.
On one of the days that we were there the surf was really pumping. The waves were mounting up to 5-6 feet and were dumping really loudly. The good surfers were still popping up on the waves but by the time they did a bottom turn they had a face full of wave and got knocked off! We thought we’d leave the locals to it and took some bodyboards out instead to play on the slightly smaller waves which was fun but the rip got me whilst I was chilling out the back and I got taken down the beach. I had to paddle in at a right angle to the rip which took me onto the Wreck break where most of the surfers were. I managed to navigate my way through all the bodies trying to catch waves when I got sprung upon by one of the bigger waves and taken for one of the rides of my life. I looked down as the wave formed and the bloke a couple of metres in front of me (who was just about to duck under the wave) was at least a metre and a half below me! I paddled like crazy and managed to ride down the face of the wave before it dumped on me – all I could see was white water. I held on for dear life and managed to ride the wave into the shallows with a big grin all over my face. I got out and tried to carry on as though I had meant to catch the wave and jogged back up the beach to meet Ruth! One scary-as-hell wave but a great ride!
