Catching a wave at Coogee

Coogee Bay is not known for having surfable waves.  Wedding Cake Island is a good swell break and the underwater structure makes for a dangerous "dumpy" shore.  The waves break really late and slam violently into the sand.  Coogee has a reputation for issuing the most spinal injuries of any beach in Sydney (might be all of NSW or Australia...).  Regardless, body boarding is pretty popular here and the Surf Life Savers love taking out the rescue boards in the waves. 

Today there was a big swell that I've been watching all week via the swell report.  At low tide this evening the swell was 3+ meters and producing some good waves far enough off shore for surfing.  I went down after work and managed to catch one of these big ones and got tossed about by a couple even bigger ones!  It was great fun, but I didn't wear the wetsuit, so I got cold and wasn't out there long.  There were 2-3 other people out there with me, so it was nice not battling for a spot or worrying about getting run over.  Now I can say that I have surfed Coogee!

For dinner, Amy and I had some fillets from my success last night.  Tim and I went to the north end of the bay for a "spear".  There were a lot of fish around and I ended up harvesting a male Crimson Banded Wrasse (pic). It was actually not bad; breaded and fried.  We hope to learn more as we go and get into some bigger, better fish.

Crimson Banded Wrasse