I got a text message from my mate Nigel on Saturday morning. It read:
Surf's pumping, keen for a dawnie?
I wasn't really. I'd been up at dawn all week and Saturday is bacon and egg breakfast day. So I went back to sleep.
But I didn't sleep. I dreamt about the waves and thought about it being the best it has ever been. I was imagining waves breaking from out the back at St Clair Point to the beach. After a few sets rolling through my mind I had no choice – drive myself crazy imagining what I might miss out on or just go surfing. A normal person would have been able to get back to sleep. But not me. The seed had been planted and my mind, it seems, is fertile ground.
I was glad I did – surfing at St Clair at dawn is such a remarkable feeling – especially when the swell is pushy without a breath of wind. It was a great start to the weekend.
That afternoon I got a text from my friend Josh.
Massive geomagnetic storm forecast tonight – aurora very likely, clear skies.
We're talking 1-2am in the morning here if I was to capture it – that would impinge on numerous plans in some way, so I decided to skip it. Then my mind began to imagine the night sky illuminated in greens and reds in long waving plumes of light. It was a very clear night, the stars were bright and the moon was absent – it was perfect conditions for aurora. Then I remembered the traveller I had met at the beach one day – he was an astro photographer and he'd travelled halfway around the world to photograph our night skies and aurora.
So I found myself squinting into the darkness on a precarious perch above Tunnel Beach waiting for the sky to come to life at 1am on Sunday morning. The aurora never appeared before me, but the night sky was amazing and has piqued my curiosity about these elusive lights.
Might be a north pulse toward the end of the week ... get amongst it.
See you at the beach...
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