Swell Season : XXL North Narrabeen

SWELL SEASON

Notes from Strike Missions

XXL North Narrabeen | 28th March 2026

Author : Tony Palmer | Photos : Tony Palmer

Last year, I wasn’t chasing surfing or major swell events. I can’t even remember any particular reason why, maybe surf photography had lost its shine over the last few years. This year I’m changing that perspective and aiming to get to as many of those sessions as possible, within my constraints of 9-5 work and commitments to the family - which will be tricky. As they say, tide and time waits for no man.

With this in mind, I’d been checking the forecasts since the end of summer. 10 days out from the 28th, Surfline was forecasting a decent swell 15-20’ with the swell direction dead south. I was thinking that it might not be great for the Queenscliff Bombie and Deadmans. Then again, forecasts are just that. Swell and wind direction can change and until you get there on the day and see it, it’s just a really good educated guess and a reason for the term "skunked". To be fair, I’m not the best surf forecaster either!

I’d seen Tom Myers at the monthly FBI comp and, not surprisingly, he was keeping a careful watch on conditions, he was thinking of a strike mission for the predicted east swell on the 26th, the Thursday swell window of that week.

At the beginning of the week, Saturday was still looking big, although slightly smaller at 12-18’. It still had potential providing the wind played its part. It was also on a Saturday - a day that I would actually be available and not stuck behind my desk.

Tom's Thursday prediction played out pretty well, and via social media, I watched Tom and Lex scoring a great session at a well known Sydney slab - that isn’t on the Northern Beaches. All captured in high fidelity by Tim Bonython and Cal from Thrillz and Spillz.

It was fueling my passion for the predicted Saturday swell. This year I wanted to capture not just the action but the stories that go with major swell events, and maybe a portrait or two. Something that captures more than the action, something that defines the culture and is a timeless frame. A shot that at the time that could be considered inconsequential, but in 10 years a record of a significant moment in history for the surfing community.

Without a human to put this into perspective, it looks fun.

A nice carve on the inside section.

Friday morning came and the forecast still had potential. The calendar was cleared and expectations for the weekend were set with my loved ones.

As I’m getting ready to hook into my work day, Matt Chojnacki pinged me to see if I was planning on shooting at the weekend.

In my mind I already had a rough plan, which was to have a look at the Queenscliff Bommie and Deadmans early to see what the swell and wind were doing and if the swell wasn’t hitting those spots I would head to Longreef or Narrabeen as they are more open to the south swell direction. I shared my plan with Matt and I said I’d update him in the morning.

Scraping over the mountain of water

Relieved.

His plan was to check Narrabeen early and then head to Queenscliff Bombie. Matt has spent a lifetime chasing swell up and down the east coast here in Australia, as well as spending regular time in Hawaii during the winter seasons - he has impeccable knowledge of the characteristics of most breaks on the Northern Beaches, if there is a major swell event he’ll be trying to scoring the best of it.

I don’t live close to the ocean, a 15 minute walk at a good pace, but when it’s big I can usually hear the white noise drifting over the headland. Saturday morning I could hear that familiar noise as I lay waiting for the alarm to go off, excited for what the day would bring. I grabbed a home brew coffee and downed the warm elixir whilst I simultaneously checked the surf cams and prepared my gear for the day. I wanted to keep it as light as I could. The Canon R6ii body and the EF 100-400mm ii for the long shots, RF 24-105mm F4 for some scene shots and the super light RF 50mm 1.8 for any low light shots or portraits. I packed the Aquatech Rain Cover and my trusty Mono Pod. Still it was the better part of 5kg in total with the bag.

I checked the Queensie Bommie at first light, the full tide wasn’t doing it any favours. It was breaking, but not really doing its thing and no one was out. I sent a couple of videos to Matt at around 7:00am and said I was going to check Deadmans. He’d replied that he’d checked Long Reef already and was heading to Narrabeen. As I was walking to Deadmans, via Bower Lane, Matt sent an update. Narrabeen was big and looking good, he sent me a video - that was the spot he was looking at attempting.

I watched Deadmans for a while, the waves weren’t as big as expected and lots of surfers were getting stuck behind the section, it wasn’t really inspiring me to shoot. If I wanted to capture the apex of the swell, it looked like Narrabeen was the call.

“Heading to Narrabeen now” was my text to Matt at 7:55am.

“I’ll be out there in 45mins, will take ages to paddle”, he replied and added “we’ll mostly be going right”

On the walk to the car, I bumped into Lex and Tom at Shelly Beach, fueling for the day ahead - they didn’t seem to be in a rush to get into Deadmans - probably due to the lacklustre conditions, they were just cruising and waiting for the right moment. No doubt a plan was brewing as the Black Flys jet ski had been prepared the week before, and the boys were itching to give the ski it's first run.

Whilst I was walking to the car, I was doing the calculations in my head, 20 mins walk to get to my car, 20 mins to get to Narrabeen and then 10 mins to find my spot, I knew where to be roughly - especially if Matt's going right. It’s was going be close, I might miss a couple of waves - not ideal.

Matt with a steep take off, as Casey is paddling up the face

Matt free falling, as the bottom drops out.

Matt getting close to the base of the wave, only another 6' to go!

I’d done some recon last year, so I knew of a few spots that sprang to mind - but that was without a large swell as a marker.

I got to Narrabeen, parked up and headed to my first spot, then to the second spot - neither ideal. My recon was a little off the mark. I finally found a decent spot just before 9:00am, I was convinced that Matt was already in the lineup - it was way past the 45 mins and I was cursing myself for wasting time checking Deadmans. I checked my phone. Matt had sent a picture of the boards they were riding at 8:30am. I was early ! I guess you don’t rush into paddling out in conditions like that day, so I expect they took time to prepare well before starting the paddle out.

Through my lens, I could see two ski’s and a rider each, towing into the massive waves - but there were no paddle surfers. The board picture that Matt had sent, was definitely paddle surfing. Maybe they couldn’t get out - it looked huge, I could see that as a possibility. I sent a picture of my location, if they couldn’t get out at least I could get a few shots in the car park when they got back, and I could focus on the story and less of the action.

It felt like another 20 minutes or longer before I spotted some paddle surfers way in the distance, and even with my zoom it was difficult to make out who it was or even what colour the board was, just a small surfer looking shape and massive mountains of waves. Little did I realise that Matt, Raph and Jordan had paddled from Collaroy to North Narrabeen, a distance of about 3 km.

Personally, I like lower angles for photographing waves, but there were occasions where the wave in front would block the rider and wave behind it, or like Matt's wave I would miss out on the last 6-8’ of the bottom of the wave where he’d disappear from view. I wanted to find another angle, but I also didn’t want to miss any waves - somewhat of a conundrum. After I’d got a few decent waves in the bank, I risked heading to find another spot. After a few tries, wandering around off piste, I ended up finding another angle, although not exactly what I was after, it still added some variety to the story. However, someone else was already there, camp chair, flask and sandwiches. I was conscious of taking too many similar shots - I didn’t intend on staying long. Shortly after I spotted Matt and Raph catching waves and heading into the beach.

Matt, Raph and Scotty on route to brief the lifeguards

Raph and the Orchard Gun.

The tow guys Matt Grainger and Matthew Davis

I headed back to my car, switched lenses from the 100-400 to the 24-105, and headed to the North Narrabeen car park for some story shots. Susan Whitby, another ocean photographer and friend, was doing the same and after a quick chat, I saw Matt and Raph. There seemed to be some urgency and focus, neither of them saw me - but dropped their surfboards and were in deep discussions with the lifeguards. Something was going on.

Apparently, the surfers had spotted a fin in the water and decided to head in as quickly as possible, no doubt thoughts of the summer and late last year weighing heavily on their minds. Getting in quickly is not so easy when it’s big. It seems as though Anne, an experienced big wave water woman in her own right, had opted to let the current take her north and come in and the next beach rather than risk waiting for a suitable wave to get in on.

Cool as.. Anne "yeah, I'm fine", Scott and Matt feeling very relieved.

Concerned for her safety in the treacherous conditions and also the fin in the water, Matt loaded his board in my car, should he need it for rescue, and with my camera in my lap we sped around to the next beach.

When we arrived, Anne was casually walking up from the beach, board on her head and as cool as a cucumber, looking somewhat exhausted and grateful that we had come to her aid.

Although knowing the down to earth tenacity of Anne, I’m pretty sure she would have just walked all the way back to Collaroy with the board on her head.

Thankfully she was fine and made it back in one piece. Scotty called in the good news via the two way radio to the collective sigh of relief from the lifeguards.

We loaded the boards on the roof rack, and dropped Scotty back at north Narrabeen and then headed to Collaroy, where Matt, Anne and Raph had left their cars. Matt and Anne debriefed the session during the short ride to Collaroy, as their nervous system started to transition back to a state of equilibrium, they both explained their favourite way to manage this active recovery - sugar or savoury, carbs or protein - some happy chat to pass the time.

We unloaded boards in the car park, more debriefing and I managed to get a shot of a weary and happy Anne with Matt before she headed off to decompress.

The 6:00am coffee felt like a long time ago, so it was time for another and some toast with Matt and Raph - I wanted to get in a second session and make the most of the day, so a bit of fuel would help the cause. I headed back to Deadmans, hopeful for some more shots - I watched for a while, took a few shots, but nothing compared to earlier - my day was done.

I returned home earlier than I expected, and went through the usual routine. Wiped down my gear, put batteries on to charge, imported the images into lightroom, stored a second copy for good measure and then hooked into my regular Saturday routine, with plans to check the cams on Sunday to see if there was anything left over.

Matt wrote a few words from his perspective, which you can read over at SwellNet and accompanied by a few of my shots.

It was a great start to the Season and I’m amped for more Swell Sessions and Strike Missions, hopefully a few land on weekends or days when I can get away with dropping some last minute leave into my calendar without letting my team down.

Stay tuned for more in the series, and subscribe if you want to get email updates when I drop a journal entry.

And enjoy the rest of the pictures.