Another week of excellent surfing conditions has kept the crowds coming back to the Bate Bay beaches to catch a wave, a coffee and a walk on the Esplanade.
School returns for everybody on Monday and this might also drive some parents to get back to their former work habits and ease the pressure on our beach and all the busy ding repairers.
After Saturday and Sunday's run of solid easterly swell the waves size has dropped leading to a couple of days of small surf, sitting around the 2 to 3ft range for most of this working week.
With the water temperature sitting around the 20 degrees mark,this small but really clean east swell will see some fun surfing conditions until a new swell-source starts to make its mark from Friday onwards.
I took today's pics in the morning at North Cronulla and Wanda where the banks are very tide dependent and tend to close out the second the tide starts to turn.
There are plenty of surf forecast sites available and they are all speaking from the same book predicting a powerful south swell to arrive on Friday afternoon. Winds are predicted to be cross-shore at the time the swell arrives.
Saturday morning see's the pick of the week with a 4-6ft solid swell and offshore winds before the southerly is due to blow through leaving Sunday and Monday morning bigger, but ugly and onshore.
There is not much world surfing going on with the WSL shut down during the coronavirus outbreak with the (funnily enough) Corona Open JBay still on the cards for Jul 7 - 19- followed by Teahupoo, in Tahiti August 26-Sep 6 .JBay is my favourite contest of the year so hopefully it all goes ahead.
Surfing has been banned in many countries and we should be thankful that apart from the one weekend Sutherland Council and the NSW Government let us continue with our salt water pursuits.
Masks are required at Los Angeles County beaches, which reopened last weekend to join counterparts in other US states that have allowed a somewhat limited return to famed stretches of sand.
In New Zealand surfers enjoyed the waves at Mount Maunganui after the Kiwi Government eased restrictions under COVID-19 Alert Level 2, which is being introduced in three stages.
Restaurants, cinemas, retail, playgrounds and gyms have been allowed to open with physical distancing and strict hygiene measures in place from last Thursday . Public gatherings are permitted for up to 10 people and New Zealanders are now able to travel domestically.
Schools and early childhood centres opened from Monday 18 May while bars will be allowed to reopen from Thursday 21 May. New Zealand was placed under full lockdown on March 26 in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Last weekend also saw the return of surfing to Tahiti and France's southwest surf region which was reopened for surfing and swimming-Its been two months since their beaches were closed and the surf has been pumping there and at Teahupoo.
