Photos from Snapper Rocks, Greenmount, Kirra February 3rd 2009

Photos from Snapper Rocks, Greenmount, Kirra February 3rd 2009

Surf boat CoolangattaI finally managed to get in the water at Snapper on Tuesday…of course I missed it!..
The day before on Monday it was absolutely pumping through the beach at Coolangatta, kegging right down past big groyne at Kirra.
There wasn’t much current so I swam / drifted all the way from Snapper Rocks down past Kirra…
I got a few pics of the surfers on the way through Rainbow, but got down to Coolangatta beach pretty quickly.
It was pretty spooky and sharky down there as I was on my own …swimming….( a man was attacked by a Great White less than a kilometre from here only a few weeks ago), but I hung in there and tried to get the shot.. I didn’t want millions of surfers cluttering up the picture!
I was after the classic ‘in the tube looking out’ shot …….looking out of the barrel into the sunset. So I had to get away from the crowd
Unfortunately I didn’t get what I was after, the waves weren’t big enough, but scored a few nice ones anyway.
So as the sun was setting I decided to make the swim to the beach, over the deep, sharky gutter between me and the shore.

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So here I am, lying on my back kicking my fins and making good progress across (in my mind) the shark filled channel….
I don’t mind being on a board at this time of night but when your whole body’s immersed in the water, you tend to feel a little vulnerable.
I was shitting myself! Every ripple, every ‘darker than normal’ shape in the water …was a potential prehistoric predator…..coming to swallow me whole!!!!!!..
Then all of a sudden a surf boat came smashing over a wave right near me.
Slapping me back in to reality.
They obviously hadn’t seen me and I was lucky they hadn’t run me over…
Aaaaah the perils of shooting the Super bank!!!
It was almost dark when I got to shore, relieved, legs like jelly; I started the long walk back to Snapper and the car. …..