Pack the surfboard.

I went out with 2 mates on a 8 meter hard top ali with the chef from the shark bay resort.  We got pissed with him the night befor and he offered to show us some of his secrete spots..

Bright and early the next morn the 4 of us bundle into my mates boat..

The chef pulls out his rusty hand held garmin and fires of a couple of cords..

Off we go...

We try a few places inside the bay and near the salt mines before he says lets try out further...

Out thru the heads at steep point we go..

After a couple of miles the three of us look at each other and go what the ..... is he serious..

How much further  keep going.  by this time land is no longer visible on the horizon.

The chef yells this will do and over the side his line goes..

the three of us look at each other again and in unison have a ralph..

You must understand it was no sea sickness kicking in but my fear of heights...

now his boat stands 2.6 meter above the water line and the swell was minium 4-5 times higher than the boat and then there was the white caps on top..

Top of wave to trough must have been a good 25 meters.  Needless to say we got out of there in a hurry.. m,uch to the chefs dissapointment..

So back inside the heads we went where by this time a good 3-4 meter swell was running..

DIdn't catch much that day but sure scared the shit out of us..

We later found out that night from his wife that she often had to go out in the middle of the night to take fuel out to him because he had run out etc..

Apparently on e hell of a crazy fisherman and diver as well...

Best be taking some land based activities untill it drops a bit. Trying to get out of Gnaraloo bay in 4+ metre swell is near on impossible let alone trying to get back in. The swell rolls in over the reef into the bay then picks up again and travels almost straight into the inner reef. All very good ya may think, but somewhere in there you gotta turn south to the retrieval area. Thats where the fun & games start. Good luck & i hope it drops for ya so you can enjoy the great fishing that area has to offer. Stay safe. Rob

We once got caught up amongst the Hunter Valley storms in 2007 (mid to north coast NSW).

We had our 6m cuddy cab out on a vary calm afternoon, albeit on a 4m swell. Local VMR issued a securite call & advised a strong storm is approaching very rapidly.

We pulled in the lines & started strapping it home. Within 5kms of the harbour we were right in amongst the storm.

It felt like we were fighting 8 meter water walls around us. Not fun.

Brought a 24 metre trawler from Auckland NZ through the ditch [Tasman sea ]to Eden NSW then around Wilsons prom and across to Albany then on to Bunbury and Fremantle.

It started a day after we went round the top of NZ and lasted for 5 days, trying to jam yourself in a corner trying to get a few minutes sleep without much luck. 40-55knot winds head on, cracked a side window that was normally 7 metres up off the water. Once the wind dropped to a comfortable 25-30 knots we had swell running at between 14 and 18 metres. At one stage we had a ship not more than 400 metres  away and the only time we could see it was when both vessels were on the top of a wave.

After a stop over in Eden we were pushed down the east coast by a 40knot NE gale and when we turned in to Bass straight from Wilsons promitory it was as flat as a sheet of glass in not more that 2-3nm from a full on gale.

Have been in some hairy seas before but nothing had come anywhere close to the Tasman.

worst i have been in was down Albany. we were in a 28ft cat and surfing down the front of swells on a 45 degree angle and the boat was only around half the length of the swell, only prob we had was when we got to the bottom we tended to nose dive and were temporarily under water with waves crashing over the cabin and filling the deck. thankfully we had a great skipper that came in in these conditions all the time and the boat was built to handle rough seas with airtight hulls for flotation. just about spent the entire trip in sitting on the floor of the cabin holding on for deer life, something i dare not experience again

- the brother and i were about 1.5 k's off Monahagns in Geo Bay last year when a squall line showed back up towards Bunbury. By the time we were half way back to the ramp there were 1.5 metre waves and very confused crappy conditions mixed with 30 knot winds - hairy in an old 4.4 tinny even so.

Hey sea-kem i got your message about way points for gnaraloo i was in thailand for 3 weeks if you want to give me a call 0438096600 you can come round and ill give you safe marker way points and some tips.

Cheers Colin

Sea Kem , i was up there 2 years ago and the swell came up from nothing to 5.5 mts, we did launch and went through the bay and quickly retruned as when we made the passage to head out to sea there were 15 ft rollers breaking right across the channel about another 600 mts further out and the whole of Gnaraloo bay was white water and waves going in all directions , it only took about two days to calm down again but the passage and bay has its secrets and hidden bombies which can catch you out.

good luck with your trip, the swells only up friday then comes down pretty quickly

Yeah keeping a close eye on it. Next week looks reasonable at this stage.Ah who cares FREEEEDDDOOOOMMMM!!!!!!!!! 

Had 8 mm or so of rain here  in Carnarvon today, should settle the dust a bit for the drive in.