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Surfers stoked by big swell

Just as dawn broke, the first surfers gathered along the rocks at Cowaramup Bay, waiting to see what had been promised: the best waves for years, kicked up by a monster storm over the remote southern Indian Ocean.

The first handful paddled out as the sun rose, braving the massive rolling swell; many paid the price, tumbling off their boards inside the curling barrels and heading for the beach.

By mid morning, the small carpark overlooking the famous North Point break and the surrounding roads were packed with cars, surfers and onlookers, as the first groups set out on jetskis to tow surfers into the fast moving waves.

Towing in at the usually busy North Point is rare but the waves were empty enough to allow some big name surfers, including Taj Burrow, working with fellow surfer Dino Adrian, to be pulled into big waves.

One of the first to emerge from a barrel after a tow-in was WA surfer Dave Delroy Carr. He later posted a video to his Instagram account: “It's not often you get to tow this wave. Once in a lifetime.”

Other jetskis hurtled further out, to an offshore break known as Cow Bombie and notorious for big waves.

Big-wave surfers had come from far and wide after spotting the huge ocean storm on weather maps, when it was the size of Australia and generating swells predicted to reach 9m around the south-west and more than 12m at some breaks offshore.

Mark Visser, a renowned big surf specialist, noted the system off South Africa 10 days earlier. He expected it would fizzle out but when it didn’t, he jumped on a plane from Queensland and hightailed it to the south west, in time to head out yesterday with other surfers, including Jamie Mitchell, who flew in from Tahiti, and locals Jarryd Foster and Mick Corbett.

By the afternoon, the clear weather and big waves had dozens of surfers trying their luck at North Point, including young rising star Jack Robinson.

Locals said the surf was some of the best in the area this year, at 4-6m and with clean, surfable waves, but in the end, it wasn’t one for the record books.

The hype around the predictions of a once-in-a-decade swell, dreaded by surfers burnt before by the anticipation of waves that don’t live up to expectation, didn't translate on the water.

Anticipation had been high, ever since the first charts started to circulate showing the intense system. But despite that, conditions are expected to be good throughout the weekend and surfers were still expected to make their way south.