Report and photos by Dan Wyer
Video by Steve Russo
Music by Rick Willsmore 

As Summer 2012 rolls on towards its end surfers in southwest Western Australia have been lucky enough to score a couple of last-blast swells. 

The weekend offered small, clean conditions across exposed breaks through the mornings. It also saw the first event of the Health Insurance Fund of Australia Pro Am Series completed in ideal conditions out the back of Gracetown. There was a great turn out for the event with surfers travelling from across the state to compete in the new WA based surf series. Eventual winner was Yallingup’s Ryan Wordsworth in the open men’s and Leah Wright from Geraldton in the open women’s. The next event of the HIF Pro Am Series travels north to Geraldton on 12th - 13th May.

The surf in the south west continued to improve with both Monday and Tuesday dishing up mostly clean conditions through the early hours with light east-southeast to southeast winds and waves in the three-to-four foot range on Monday and slightly smaller on Tuesday.
 
The stand out day of the week was Thursday when a decent pulse of west-southwest swell delivered some chunky four-to-six foot plus waves through the morning. Winds were light and variable early with occasional wafts of a southwesterly. Due to the west in the swell protected bays and points had their fair share clean fun waves. 

Looking into the weekend there looks to be no shortage of swell with a large spike expected on Sunday. Have a great weekend.

- Dan Wyer

Local videographer Steve Russo spent the Summer on the sand too, filming Taj and friends ripping up their home breaks.

“January was good,” recalled Steve, who cut this clip from footage of sessions at semi-secret spots around the Yallingup and Margaret River earlier this year.  The best shots come from a January 1 session at a really shallow reef. “It’s the full neck-breaker, and it doesn’t handle a really big swell.” 

Enjoy...