UAE | Environment

Surfers head to coast to catch waves

Surfers made their way down to Fujairah over the last two days in the hope of catching some waves and making the most of Cyclone Gonu but were faced with too much water to handle.

  • By Emmanuelle Landais, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 23:38 May 3, 2009
  • Gulf News

Dubai: Surfers made their way down to Fujairah over the last two days in the hope of catching some waves and making the most of Cyclone Gonu but were faced with too much water to handle.

Click here to see the direction of Gonu (pdf)

Jason Offard, 37 from Australia said as a big wave surfer he was eager to get to the East Coast to surf and get the most out of the 12 foot waves but instead was faced with an uncontrollable mass of water.

"It was pretty full on and the waves were about 10 to 12 feet high but impossible to surf them because they were spilling out onto the beach rather than forming good waves," he said.

Surfers apparently congregate in Al Aqah at an area called Tim's reef which usually offers good surf.

"On Wednesday there was nowhere to paddle out to so I had to put it off but it should be quite good this weekend. A group of surfers are planning to go down. In Australia the waves are usually the same size but the cyclone makes it hard to ride the waves - they were out of control," said Offard.

He said the waves were coming right up to hotels along the coastline and pulled beach furniture in when it was not tied down.

Staff struggled to keep things from getting swept away and repeatedly jumped into crashing waves to retrieve chairs or signs.

"There were some tourists in the hotel who were just wondering what was going on but apart from that there weren't many people. On the roads we saw police telling people to go back and there was a fair amount of cars on the roads," said Offard.

"It wasn't as fierce as I thought it would be. The winds weren't as strong as I expected but I've never seen waves like that in Dubai," said Offard.


  • Rate this article
  • Average reader rating (30 votes) 2 Stars
Tools

Emailing an article to friend is a simple way to share a news item. Your friend will receive an email with your name and email address as well any personal message you choose to send.

The information you provide on this page will not be used to send unsolicited emails.

This service is not intended to encourage spam, and action may be taken against individuals who maliciously enter personal details of another individual.

Share this article

Related Articles

  1. Fujairah escapes further deluge as Kalba floods again

    Fujairah escapes further deluge as Kalba floods again

  2. Storm history

    Storm history

  3. Fujairah resorts relocate guests and cancel weekend bookings

    Fujairah resorts relocate guests and cancel weekend bookings

  4. Efforts on to make flooded areas habitable

    Efforts on to make flooded areas habitable

  5. Markets struggle to meet demand as prices soar

    Markets struggle to meet demand as prices soar

  6. Hundreds of flood-hit families relocated

    Hundreds of flood-hit families relocated

  7. Floods recede as weather improves

    Floods recede as weather improves

    East coast floods recede as weather improves

  8. Weather stabilising, say forecasters

    Weather stabilising, say forecasters

More from UAE Environment

  1. Rain hits parts of Dubai and Sharjah

  2. Petrol fumes at gas stations are threat to health

  3. Time to properly deal with waste

  4. A flock of Geese

All articles in Environment

More from UAE

Gulf News
Popular in UAE
Readers' pictures
Your pictures

Readers' pictures

A Selection of the best Gulf News reader pictures this week

Latest news
Community Reports

More from Community Reports

Weather

More from Weather