I pretty much wrote off today and went for a surf this morning - nothing epic but had a 2-3' peak to myself on around the low tide at Collaroy. I like this break because it can hold a big SE swell and you can get some short but pretty nice right handers in front of the rock. Inconsistent and lots of sets closing out because of the eastery direction but quite ok - glassy this am and pretty warm (the water but a bit brown - close your mouth when duck diving)
Anyway - had sleep on the lounge and then opened the computer to find 15knots purportedly blowing at kurnell at 2:00pm and peaking to 18knots. With the swell around my first thought was that i missed an epic session at Wanda. Did anyone sail it?
I did sail yesterday in the SE off Long Reef (good to see some of the old faces back - anyone need a beer plumber?) It was on/off with some decent long gusts out the back so I was going most of the time on a 5.0. I did'nt like being "buzzed" by the kites though - why do they have to come within a meter of you to pass you! Yes i do get the fact that they were faster and getting more jumps but with 7-8 of them on the water it was getting busy. I gave up about mid morning but it looked like it was getting better! Waves were a but pot luck and not really enough wind on the inside to hold a decent top turn when DTL on-shore wavesailing. Except Brett and Matt managed a couple - maybe it is the twinnies! Next time.. Makaha regardless of how sketchy it looks - I will just run down the hill!
sorry for the ramble
It blew 20 -25 knots all arvo in the Gong, and East Corrimal reef was as good as any port tack conditions I've ever seen or sailed in my life.
Better than any Gerroa day.
F**K me dead it was awesome.
Cheers Q,
Is EC reef pretty easy to find? Better than G? Rare to really fire but unreal when it does?
Sounds like an alternative to Wanda, Gerroa etc - I would like to check out a somewhere new!
cheers
Very easy to find.
About 10 mins from the bottom of Bulli Pass.
Not rare at all. Fires whenever there is enough swell for a wave to break. Its just that today was very very very very special. Its a very smooth wave, and this arvo was high tide so you can take off very deep over the rock shelf. Connects all the way to the beach (about a 200m ride if you stay on).
The beach break is great anyway if the reef isn't breaking. Even if there its dead flat everywhere else, there is still at least a waist-shoulder high wave off the beach. Today it was mast high.
Definitely an alternative to Gerroa if you're doing the drive, and its 40 mins closer.
Safe back-up if you turn up to Gerroa and there's crap/no surf (pretty much this entire season). Although "Spot W" has been a great backup too lately. 
I love Gerroa, and there's been countless epic days there, but East Corrimal reef throws up a better wave in conditions like today. Big, but doesn't close out. Section after section after section.
In Jan I sailed at Corrimal with qwert and had a sick day, heaps better than gerroa when the surf is small. If Corrimal has wind I think it is better than gerroa. Reef break and a beach break at the one spot, you cant get much better than that.
Yeah what an end of DST present that was. Probably the best session of the season for sure, mast high sets, 20-25 kts, tide was good so you could sail right over the reef epic!
After you left qwerty I was making my way down the beach (less walk to carpark) and damn, it got heavy down there! Went down hard on a couple of bombs, no idea how the gear survived haha.
yeah Tim, you missed it again - Wanda had waves, shoulder to head high, not blowing hard enough to jump, but plenty of waves and the surfers must have gone to the pub to watch footy
Had it to myself from about 3till 5pm - not epic but smooth wave riding like friday when Matt and I were out - only a couple of kites out.
Sailed wanda yesterday early and by 10.30am there were 20 kites there. Had enjoyed a couple of hours by then so we left them to run into each other.
Saw carnage between their stringy bits while they were still on the beach so can only imagine what it was like when they were on the water.
EC reef launch, is it next to the holiday caravan park (north or south side) or by the corimal seapool? or further south again?
Been keen to try but never seen anyone out there, all summer been driving after work from W'Gong home to Cronulla to sail Wanda, should have tried corimal or belambi then gone home.....
Got a sail in this morining thanks to the sun being up early at Wanda, better than Sat morning but still to onshore for decent wave to sail in, decent swell though for some occasional jumps. Only got 2 semi decent waves in 30mins shame I missed it yesterday in the Ne'er.
It was good to feel slightly overpowered on a 5.0 for a change this morning as its been a while....
KMAN It's on the south side of the headland that Bellambi boat harbour is located on. See pic below. That picture must have been taken when it was super small. On the weekend it was breaking from the outer reef all the way down to the beach, so you could basically ride it from the rock/reef all the way to the beach. It only really does this when the surf is up though, otherwise it's either sail the reef or the beach break. The reef is usually a bit smaller unless the swell is E or more S If it's a NE swell the reef knocks a bit of height out of it, usually sail the beach then unless it's a big NE swell.
If it's windy there is no way you should be driving to Wanda instead of sailing here, it's a great spot, plus less crowded. Only really qwerty and I sail it regularly. Few kiters (2-4), but they are good blokes.
There are also a few awesome southerly spots in the Gong, other than Windang which are worth checking out 
Thanks for clearing up the launch spot, I'll be packing the gear in the car from now and taking it to work when the weather looks like it might be on and give it a go. With DST changes in effect the sun goes down way to earlier so its either a early morning session so finish before 8:30 or try hit it about 4 for an hour if i'm lucky...trying to get to wanda in the arvo is pretty much dead now till after winter 
East Corrimal sure is a nice set up but you have to take into account that from my experience it suffers terribly from the same crappy wind that most of the Gong's beaches get when the wind goes too north. I saw a few days this season where the wind line sits out to sea with just gusty crappy wind wafting through the break. I have never seen it at mast high, but I am sure it would pretty sick.
was the wind any good down there today?
Seabreeze readings for bellambi look epic but the rest of the illawarra readings look, well, weak as...
Just curious
Yeah I was on a 4.7 from 2pm-ish fully powered all arvo. Bellambi is basically the only wind meter that bears any resemblance to the wind near the coast in the gong. The Airport (Albion Park) etc are all basically useless.
