SO there he was, The Offsider, heading into the eye of one of the most powerful storms he'd ever experienced. The system had begun to wind itself up around midday last Tuesday and by 2pm, was threatening to rip the front door from its hinges and dislodging roof panels at work.
When the power went off at 3, The Offsider decided to walk the short distance home to see how the family were faring. He hurried along empty city streets buffeted by gale force strong winds as random drops rain stung his cheeks and the fire alarm sounded continuously in the background. All the while, he watched out for flying debris - part of a house or a tree - as roofs creaked and groaned, crossing to the other side of the road to get away from shaking power poles. The whole scene took a near surreal turn when four young children cycled happily through puddles to check out the storm first hand.
The Offsider eventually arrived to watch sheets of long run iron torn shrieking from the roof of the local college and flung onto the road before his house like a scene out of a Michael Bay film. Darkness began to fall as the family hunkered down under siege while the storm raged away. From flickering candlelight, they watched the silhouette of a small tree outside the lounge windows bent double in a gale, and he quietly wondered if they'd wake in the middle of the night with the roof gone and chaos and mayhem swirling around them in the darkness. There was little else they could do but sit it out and eat the rest of the ice cream in the freezer before it melted.
The wind slowly began to ease back and the power came on at 8pm. Then the rain began. Over the next few days, stories came through the wires of serious damage to homes across the Far North, loss of life, major arterial routes severed, and a wind so strong it near "vapourised the sea" at Ahipara. The low lying Sweetwaters plains which rolled out to the west from his backyard received their traditional winter drenching to end up looking like a giant wave had rolled in off 90 Mile Beach all the way across Sandhills Road. The sight of the flooded plains now called to mind warnings of global warming, climate change and rising sea levels.
At last, the winter swell season had arrived, the biggest swell of the year hitting four days before the storm. With the local points maxing out, the Age sportsbuster decided discretion was the better part of valour and stayed ashore to watch as surfers from all over wandered across the rocks to jump in and test themselves against Neptune's might. Either side of the big day were plenty of days of fine waves of a more benign nature for a decrepit longboarder who enjoyed cold crystalline peelers up to head height, including paddling out for one session of knee-high perfection only to be informed by a rookie how exceptional it had been an hour before.
