Chasing Light, Lines & a Bit of Luck
What an unreal day.
Finally, the kind of morning you wait for. Clean light, solid waves, and enough time to properly document one of the best natural occurrences on the planet.
There’s something about the ocean, the rhythm of the swell, the sound of boards hitting water, the quiet chaos of everyone paddling for position, it just hits different. It’s one of those things that never gets old.
That said, it’s not exactly easy.
These shoots take time, planning, and a fair bit of commitment. The 4am alarm was set, gear mostly packed the night before, and somehow I still managed to turn the alarm off and nearly sleep through it. Elite performance.
After years of chasing sunrises and surf, you learn that early starts don’t always equal epic results. Plenty of mornings end with “yeah, that’ll do.” But today, today delivered.
The sets were a bit slow to begin with. Lots of waiting, watching, timing. And while I’m not swimming out there like some of the legends doing it the hard way, I’ve well and truly retired from fighting the sweep, there’s still a fair bit going on behind the scenes.
Launched from Currumbin and punched through a few early sets, carefully, the camera gear definitely gets priority over airtime. It looked promising, but after a quick check of the surf cams, Kirra was calling.
So, with that early morning glow starting to creep in, it was time to head south.
It took a little while to get the camera out, things looked busy at first, but then the sets started lining up. And when they did, that’s when it all came together.
Perfect lines, backlit waves, everything wrapped in this warm orange glow.
One of those moments where you just sit back for a second and think, yep, this is why I do it.
