Stair closure at Point Leo Foreshore
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stairs reminder
I dont know if i will get away with this sharing a competitors article, but this article and topic was so interesting and i really feel for the surfers of the area.
The area gets dissed a lot because these days it's so crowded and rarely gets that big, but as a grommet i loved going around there and surfing the reefs on big winter swells and just always thought the area has its own nice unique charm, just a pitty its so close to the burbs.
"Vanishing Point
What if your favourite local break just disappeared? For this crew, it actually happened.
Point Leo, facing into Western Port Bay on Mornington Peninsula, once pumped. Now it’s all but withered away. Here, local surfer Lachy McDonald breaks down the mystery of the vanishing point.
***
Victoria’s Western Port Bay is a divisive zone, both literally and emotionally.
Nestled between the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island, the bay is a semi-protected playground with options for both coasts when the brunt of Bass Strait becomes too much.
“Gutless and crowded, full of burgers,” come the naysayers, but with the right timing and mindset you can find fun, and even high-quality surf.
Until around 2012, the inaccurately named “Point” at Point Leo was the best wave on the Peninsula side of the void. Tide dependent, a suck-rock take-off would offer walls and bowls through the section known as The Racecourse, for multiple turns in both directions. Up to head-high, it was a defined peak. Any bigger and the left semi-closed-out, as an outside boil on the right got you in early, offering bigger turns or a backdoor tube.
The high-tide sessions were frequented by some of the coast’s best surfers. The venue even hosted professional events, as well as multiple State and national level contests."
More here
https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/vanishing-point/162374
Missed my Edit period re reading the article
Heres the real focus of the article, thats just seems so crazy, it must be heart breaking for local surfers.
"The break’s high-tide demise began in the late 2000s. Under perfect conditions, it often seemed mis-aligned, and slowly more sets began pushing wide of the take-off or swinging deep inside, missing the rock and Racecourse sections.
Over time, the swell’s focus completely shifted. Today, the break offers little more than a regressing shoulder, except on large, low-tide days.
What happened? Conspiracy theories abound. Many point the finger at a mussel farm a few kilometres west, near the mouth of the bay. Others take aim at coastal development and changes in stormwater runoff. A long-term shift in swell direction has even been discussed.
Aussie surfing stalwarts and local board manufacturers Phil and Paul Trigger, along with their long-time glasser Jon Jolly, are among the best to have surfed this zone. With experience in the area back to the 1960s, they’ve felt the area’s changes first-hand.
My first question to the trio is somewhat rhetoric – are we just getting older, was it simply rose-coloured glasses looking in the rear-view mirror? Surely it can’t have changed that much?
The response is unanimous: “Completely different.”
“That was a great wave for a long time. Reliable and competitive. The best surfers frequented it – Garry Taylor, Andrew Everist, Simon Forward, Kane and Gus Tankard, Phil Coates, the Watson brothers, Wally Tibballs and many others. You would be hard-pressed to convince the best of our younger generation to even try it now on a high tide. Unbelievable how it doesn’t run off anymore.”
^^ thanks for sharing that. I wouldn’t have surfed the point for 20 + years I reckon. Better option's elsewhere as it has faded as described. Some suck rock sessions still seem to go down but short, not running down the reef. Hard to remember the last bay swell either. Lots of inbetweeners .
maybe give it a run Friday @blackers, see if it stands up, for old times sake. (interesting article @indo)
I guess if its just a natural cycle who knows one day it could do the opposite and change back again, who knows even get deeper, really feel for the locals there though.
basesix wrote:maybe give it a run Friday....
Thanks for the heads up. A week on Monday looking like a bayswell :)
Friday looks a tweener unfortunately.
It's where I learnt to surf, the closest break to home, so fond memories. It feels like too much west in the swells, with the storm track higher perhaps. Over to you Craig.
....erm, in a fortnight rather than a week..........
Haven’t surfed the point much at all as noted ^^ better less crowded options (beyond West Head). The first time I did surf the point I remember like it was yesterday, big swell and a thick fog reducing visibility down massively - big peaks coming out of nowhere, ouch:) lots of hard last minute paddling and relying more on sound than sight. The lefts at 1st reef were reliably good
Gee, I just love surfing in thick fog where the visibility is poor, everything is closed in around you, waves arrive and disappear into the mist, the sea rises and falls and your ears are tingling alert to any sound, yeah it’s the focus on sound from the splash of someone else paddling out to the boil of the suck rock. It’s a rare thing, done it only 4 times in my lifetime!
First Reef. Now there is a wave that has all but disappeared.
Surfing in fog is good fun, it usually means its going to be clean! Clean-ups make it interesting.
This is a heads-up that the big, long set of wooden stairs used to access Crunchie Point will be closed from late August for several weeks while we replace them. We were lucky enough to receive a Public access and Risk grant from DEECA to replace these well-used stairs with a new set made entirely of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, the same stuff that we used as grating on the Disabled boardwalk. It does not slip, burn, twist, or warp.