Australia's tubing Superbank is arguably the best beach break wave in the world, a man-made wave that can run for kilometers, but this surfer's paradise has revealed a dark heart of surfing.
When the ocean produces lines of barreling waves, some 500 surfers from around the world can litter the long line-up, hungry for the perfect wave.
"At its best it is heaven on earth," says Wayne "Rabbit" Bartholomew, former world champion and president of the Association of Surfing Professionals, the sport's governing body.
PHOTO: AFP
But Superbank, on Queensland's Gold Coast, can be so crowded that blood has been spilled, by accident and in anger.
Australian big wave rider Dylan Longbottom, who rides 10m plus waves, had his jaw broken and cheekbone fractured in an accident with another surfer at the break.
While in January a local surfer was fined and ordered to pay damages after being found guilty of serious assault on a surfer and beachgoer at Superbank over surfing's cardinal sin — "dropping in" or stealing another surfer's wave.
"It doesn't take 'em long to realize the milk of human kindness ran sour here long ago," wrote Sean Doherty, editor of Australia's surfing bible Tracks magazine
"The propensity for this place to corrupt is frightening," said Doherty in a recent editorial on Superbank titled "Human Soup," which described how greed for the perfect wave was corrupting surfing's mellow nature.
"Have we crossed the tipping point where the bank's good vibes are outweighed by the blackness that lives in the heart of men?" asked Doherty.
GOING OVER THE FALLS
But it is not just surfers who are asking whether the pleasures on offer at Superbank are worth the cost.
The Gold Coast City Council in southeast Queensland state has commissioned a study into the sand dredging which created Superbank, fearing it has degraded beaches and may place at risk millions of dollars in surf/beach tourism.
The dredging of the nearby Tweed River to ensure its mouth stayed open for fishing boats has seen more than 3.7 million cubic meters of sand shifted since 1995.
The bulk of the sand settled on a handful of beaches to the north, linking Snapper Rocks, Rainbow Bay, Greenmount and Kirra into one long and wide stretch of sand, and accidentally producing Superbank.
The beaches have expanded from their original small crescent shape, leaving many beachgoers unhappy and local businesses suffering.
"The beach is so wide that it is like crossing a virtual desert to get to the water and people are not happy with that," said councilor Greg Betts.
"We have people coming for annual holidays to Kirra and Greenmount and they are saying to unit (apartment) operators they will not be coming back next year because they no longer like the beaches," Betts said. "The beaches on the Gold Coast are the lifeblood of tourism."
The Gold Coast City is Australia's premier tourist destination, attracting almost 10 million overnight and day trip visitors each year. That's over 80,000 visitors a day and most head to its long, sandy beaches.
Tourism contributes more than A$2.4 billion (US$2 billion) to the Gold Coast's gross regional product, says the local council.
Initial research by Griffith University into surfing's economic benefit to the Gold Coast found that surfers spent A$20 million a year visiting just one surf break.
The break, South Stradbroke, is an island off the northern end of the Gold Coast accessible only by boat or by paddling across a dangerous seaway. A total of 11,500 surfers make 64,000 surf visits to South Stradbroke in a year. Some only buy wax, but others purchase boats and jet skis to reach the break.
The Superbank, readily accessible by car and surrounded by high-rise tourist apartments, probably attracts 10 times that number of surfers. Surfers plus associated beach tourism in the Coolangatta/Kirra area probably contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the Gold Coast economy.
BRING BACK KIRRA
Some in the area believe dredging has to stop or at least be regulated so nature can take back control of the beaches. Gold Coast resident Bartholomew rejects calls for an end to Superbank.
"The call to destroy Superbank is outrageous," he says. "The incidents are very isolated. I agree it is too crowded. It can be very intense when it's good, but the trade off is that it is so much more consistent now. It breaks 300 days a year."
"It's a challenging wave. You take-off deep behind the rock and it's a really steep take-off and it is not a user friendly wave. The pecking order peels down the bay."
The aggression and crowded nature of Superbank has sparked a strong push for the restoration of nearby Kirra, whose tubing wave is still regarded as Australia's best even though it has all but disappeared due to the dredging that created Superbank.
The restoration of Kirra, which is backed by the Gold Coast deputy mayor David Power, would disperse the current crowd of surfers but also fuel the lucrative surf tourism industry.
"Now there is really only one spot with a decent wave. They're hassling out in the water and there's threats, it's pretty nasty," said Betts, a long-time Gold Coast surfer.
"I will not go there even if it good, it's just not worth it, it's too crowded."
But for most surfers the best reason to bring Kirra back to life is to ride the hallowed wave, listed by international surfing magazines as one of the top 10 waves every surfer must ride before they die.
"One of the reasons to bring Kirra back is it was regarded as the best wave on the planet Earth," says Bartholomew, who in the 1970s was one of the surfers who dominated the Kirra line-up.
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