This kind of stuff is great for Queensland Tourism! 
All signs pointed to Noosa coming alive this weekend! “Cyclone Ului is generating monster swells that will punish the Southeast Queensland Coastline this weekend!” “A Century Swell!” “8-12 Foot Waves on Saturday!” “Dangerous conditions this weekend! Storm Surges, Localised Flooding and Beach Erosion forecast!”
Friday Afternoon was exciting, the swell was sizeable and the atmosphere was electric. Everybody had heard what was heading our way, there was talk of things to come everywhere I turned. Everything was coming together nicely. I got some setup shots, popped around and shot some stuff with the Glidetrack and finished off with some time lapse when it got too dark for video. This was all just a reconnaissance mission, the next day was what counted. . .Saturday was game day! Sadly it didn’t quite turn out the way everybody thought.
Despite the media doing their usual stuff, I thought the Coastalwatch Swell Forecast would be at least somewhat accurate. After a week of excitement that built to feverish pitch at 5:30am this morning while I was driving to Noosa, arriving at the car park out at first point was a little bit of an anti-climax. It looked smaller than the evening before and despite picking up a little bit, it soon got pretty messy. It became apparent that the fabled “8-12 foot waves” were just that, and unlikely to be seen. I’ve got to say it was a little depressing having been looking forward to it all week.
Now don’t get me wrong, there were some good waves to be had, but they just weren’t the kind of bone-crunching waves that I had been hoping for. Something really crazy with more serious consequences for a misplaced foot or an overly ambitious turn. Something that would make for good vision!
By lunchtime I’d called it quits and headed home via. Mooloolaba, just to see if any madmen were chasing closeouts on the beach. There wasn’t a lot going on and so it was wrapped.
Sadly I didn’t really capture anything that is, what I would call, outstanding. If anything, the footage from the Cyclone Hamish Swell in November of ’08 was much crazier and made for better watching. Anyway, better not neg on it too much, we’ll see how it comes up when it’s all done and dusted. Hopefully it won’t take too long to get it up.
On another note, I finally heard from Canon with regard to the Autofocus issues I had been having. After this tweet “May have to give up the hope of @CanonAustralia helping with my Canon 7D #autofocus issue. No progress in three weeks. 
Blog post Friday.” I received an e-mail from the Service Department, there was no mention of there being a known (read: admitted) issue with 7D’s, but it did seem like they were taking the issue seriously and that they gave a damn. Which I might say is very nice, as I was beginning to think that they didn’t and wasn’t looking forward to having a sour taste in my mouth. I’m yet to make contact back to them as it came through on Friday afternoon but I’ll let you all know how it progresses.
More soon! 
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