These days surf life savers and surf board riders happily co-exist on Australia's beaches. In fact, many surfers are now serving members of their local surf life saving clubs. It wasn't always so. There was a time when the two tribes hated each other... and occasionally even came to blows. This fictitious yarn about a bad day at the beach is based on real events that happened … [Read more...]
Fairy Bower monsters surf-boat crew! True story from the horses mouth!
On Sunday the 22nd of March 1966, the crew of the Palm Beach Surf Life Saving Club surf-boat, “Cabbage Tree I” rowed from the calm safety of Shelly Beach at Manly a few hundred meters out and just around the corner into the twenty foot plus waves that were breaking at Fairy Bower on that day. I have written about the event before. But here we have one of the … [Read more...]
A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
Shane was stoked that Kiddies Corner at South Palm Beach was firing up after days of shitty southerly storm conditions making surfing impossible right up and down the Northern Beaches. It was 8.00 a.m. Sunday, November 1966. Things hadn’t been good in recent weeks for Shane and his mates with the local Warringah Council passing regulations that banned surfing at most of his … [Read more...]
Death Wish at Fairy Bower
Fairy Bower - sissy by name, gnarly by nature Once in a blue moon the surf on Sydney’s northern beaches gets so big that it is virtually impossible to go surfing. Just about the last rideable spot on a huge day is the point break near Manly incongruously known as Fairy Bower. If the swell gets up and over eighteen or twenty feet, as a general rule, “The Bower” is the only … [Read more...]