PHOTOS | Cold water cool waves

The south coast got some 8ft action, but the southerly direction swell pushed past the Bate Bay mouth, leaving us with some head high solid sets.

The water temp also dropped to a yearly low hitting 15.4 to coincide with the coldest weekend of the year which saw snowfall on the Blue Mountains and lots of people head to the ski slopes.

Yesterdays 4-6 ft morning assault is as big as it is forecast to get this surfing week -but today's waves are still pretty good around the 3-5 ft mark and should be light offshore until mid-morning.

The beach still has lots of good banks so the crowds are spread out and the cold is also keeping the numbers down-I took today's pics at the Midway bank.

The rest of the week sees the swell dropping to a couple of foot until a sou-east change at lunch on Friday sets us up for another weekend of decent waist to shoulder high waves-with Sunday predicted to be offshore all day.

These offshore winds with some nice size swell are a gift for Sydney surfers so make the most of them and get out there before the dreaded nor-east season is upon us.

The COVID-19 information from Government officials is evolving constantly and boardriders clubs and group activities have to comply with these new 'no travel to compete' conditions.

For the local boardriders club competition there has been no additional recommendations made as there is no travel involved between regions.

Surfing NSW's advice for all clubs is to maintain social distancing. In practice, this means limiting physical and social contact, not shaking hands, hugging or kissing and avoiding, wherever possible, being in close contact with lots of other people.

Community sport organisations are asked to cease face-to-face social activities e.g. award ceremonies, end-of-season social gatherings, post-training group dinners etc

Avoid carpools or travel with people from different household groups and for local activities, limit spectators to one parent only, where the child requires parental supervision during the sporting activity.

The 2020 Port Stephens Surf Festival (both Longboard and SUP state titles) event is unfortunately cancelled and will not run this week due to the new COVID-19 restrictions.

There is now major changes and strong recommendations for regional and state based sporting events from NSW Health & Chief Health Officer Dr Kerry Chant which come into effect this week.

In Queensland there are different rules and reigning national champions North Shore Boardriders Club have taken out the 2020 nudie Australian Boardriders Battle QLD qualifier on the weekend, which was held at Duranbah Beach on the Gold Coast in punchy 2ft waves.

North Shore's power surfer Alister Reginato, was stoked to take out the QLD qualifier and move one step closer to winning a second national final.

"It's pretty epic," said Reginato. "It was our goal to win the national final, which we were able to achieve last season. We've never won the QLD qualifier event - which is just as important to us because we're surfing against all our local clubs and we know everyone here really well so it's super competitive."

North Shore defeated Snapper Rocks, Noosa and Burleigh Boardriders respectively in a nail-biting final. All four teams will now head to the national final to be held hopefully sometime in 2021 if the other states can actually get to compete.