Waitpinga Surf Forecast and Surf Reports

Steeve Whitehead from AUSTRALIA writes:

For most of the 1980's and 1990's I had the privilege of surfing this world class surf beach. I have heard it said and read the same comment on the internet- "Waitpinga, the beach that never goes flat." This is mostly true as you might get unsurfable small days with offshores, about once every 3 years.

The beach itself is a fairly straight looking embayment between Newland Head at the eastern end and Waitpinga/Parsons Point to the west end. It is approx 3.2 km long.

The surf at this beach is breaking on top of regularly moving sand banks and is both hollow and walling. The surf here is most ridden between 1.5 m and 3.5 m. The surf steps up out of deeper water in a peaky dumping section before backing off into a wall as it passes into the rip channels.

My favorite time of year is winter because often there is a big SW storm blowing followed by an offshore wind overnight, which is developing a head of the next SW wind change. What does this mean? It means big lumpy looking swell on new sandbanks at Waitpinga with offshores. Often I would paddle out and surf all day alone picking off 4 to 6 meter lumps with barrels comparable to pipeline in Hawaii. This demonstrates Waitpinga's other potential as a real adrenalin junkies fixer upper. The offshores during winter can be intermittent but the other side of the coin is that I have seen offshores for 2 weeks at a time and that happens often in winter.

A 6'8 to 7'2 is good for this bigger winter stuff. best offshores N, and NE, but will accept NW winds better nearer to Waitpinga /Parsons Point.

2012-02-18