09-10-2026
Swell at Coalcliff
A high tide combined with a decent swell had the whole pool area under water at times. I really enjoy watching so much water move around a pool, creating gullies, mini falls and just flow everywhere with different patterns across the waters surface.
No still pool this week, just water, water and more water. Caught this wave breaking in the background as one of the previous waves slams into the stairs. The pool certainly was a place for the brave on Friday morning.
In between the waves I made my way up the little stairway off to the side for one of my favourite angles of Coalcliff pool. Took a few images but thought they needed a human element to add a little something extra. As I was the only person there at this point I set the timer and tried a few different positions, some standing off to the side in various places and some sitting. I found these sitting ones were the best, just wish I payed more attention to what the water was doing at the time cause this image doesn’t really showcase the intensity of the swell that I had been admiring all morning.
Not too long after that the first brave soul ventured down for their morning dip. I watched as he walked around the edge of the pool to cling onto the railing and stare the monsters directly in the face before jumping in the pool, which was more a washing machine at this point, for nice refreshing but definitely not relaxing swim.
It was at this point I put on the long lens and started picking out the waves. It’s so hard to show the scale of these things but trust me when I say some of them were huge. Zooming into them only made me feel smaller standing on the platform watching them roll in and eventually smash against the pool and surrounds.
I really liked the light coming through this wave, I tried to process it in a colour edit but I couldn’t quite get a look I liked. Changed to a black and white and came away with this one highlighting the light and the spray blasting off the top of the wave.
Just look at the shape of this, waves don’t come any cleaner.
I always try to get a shot of a wave with the cliffs in the background. Today it was more challenging than you would think, the waves were breaking so far out that it was a struggle to get the shot to line up with a breaking wave the way I wanted it. This was the best I could manage.
A couple more shots as I walked up to the car, this one really shows the line up and how far out the waves were breaking.
As always don’t forget to check out the rest of the
images from the morning in the gallery below
