Wave of the day!

This may not be exactly an once-in-a-life-time event. But it has to be for some one at the right place and at the right time to be able to catch a sequence of unexpected spectacular pictures like these as reported by the Gold Coast Bulletin this morning. Here's the story:

Surfer Matt Brockie headed to South Stradbroke Island with a small army of other boardriders to make the most of ideal waves pumping along the Gold Coast since Friday.

But he didn't expect to see this.

A 4m boat had pulled in close to shore to pick up a surfer when a rogue wave reared in front of them.

"They'd been going for a couple of hours and all of a sudden the set of the day has come in and almost cleaned them up," said Mr Brockie, who took these amazing photos.

"I don't think the boatie saw it coming -- he certainly wasn't trying to hit the wave, but he's just looked up and saw this wave looming in his vision.

"It was big from where I was standing so I can only imagine what it looked like from the driver's seat."

As the wave began to crest, the surfer in the back of the boat, who had just been picked up, grabbed his surfboard and bailed out.

"He went man overboard because, as far as I can tell, he must have thought the boat was going to capsize," said Mr Brockie.

"And it came bloody close. The wave was about 2m in surfer-speak and what happened with the boat could have been a lot worse.

"All hell could have broken loose."

Yes, things could be a lot worse. But it wasn't, thank God! The Editor of the Gold Coast Bulletin called this the "wave of the day." I think that could be another understatement. It is hard to describe something like this. Nevertheless that has to be a real life freaque wave, although the current academic definition of freaque waves -- i.e. greater than twice the significant wave height -- may or may not be applicable here. Our conventional freaque wave researches are way behind the real world. Of course the surfers live in a world still totally different from the researchers' world yet. At any rate, everyone is entitled to appreciate this kind of rare spectacular occurrence some time!