Gold coast and Cook Is

A few weeks ago I went to Gold Coast, Queensland, for work and took the opportunity to stay over the weekend. Mariano, a friend of mine from before migrating to Australia, lives in Brisbane and I stayed over with him and his family. He paddles by himself, preferring to stay away from clubs and organisations. I was the same way a couple of years ago.
I wanted to contact other paddlers from up there and through some common friends I met Eddie. Actually I had met him before when he come down to Sydney a few months ago and joined us in a big group for a Tuesday night paddle. However I had not had opportunity to chat with him then. I had thought of renting kayak and gear up there but Eddie offered to lend me the exact same kayak I have here so I took the offer.

Same model as I have in my garage but over 1000km away.

On Saturday we drove to Gold Coast for a short paddle out against the wind and swell and some surf where we had to compete with windsurfers but not board surfers, a novelty for me.


Mariano in action...

and holding on the side.

This is not fair!! In the middle of two brakes!!

I couldn't stay up and surfed upside down

I had told Eddie that I am happier playing in moving water than paddling distances and he highly recommended to go to Cook Is. Mariano was skeptical about the destination, either because he prefers going from A to B or more likely because we had to drive back even farther south than on Saturday to the frontier with NSW.
This little island is only 1 km from the coast and soon after we started it broke my bad luck with wild water animals!!!

Cook Is and its wild life

Apparently the sea bed in the area makes strange things with the swell which breaks in deep water,  creates rebounds against nothing and makes a small swell of 2 meters appear far bigger than it really was.

Trying to surf deep water waves...

...before they breake in the deep blue

Steep waves with the gold coast buildings on the horizon

The beach where we put in and out also has some strange behaviour with sets of waves coming from different directions and breaking all over the place.

Eddie in the new Tiderace xcite, surviving the multi directional braking waves

A fantastic place

Photos from Eddie, Mariano and me.
Take a look at the video below playing around Cook Is. While surfing I was so happy that I started howling at 2 minutes, went under water rolled back up and as I was still on the wave I kept howling.