SLATER’S COMEBACK TO START AT MANLY

THE return of Kelly Slater to full-time professional surfing is coming way sooner than we expected.

The 11-time world champion announced yesterday that he’s heading to Australia next month to begin his campaign at the Vissla Australian Open of Surfing at Manly.

It’s an unusual move for Slater who generally only surfs Championship Tour events like the Gold Coast and Bells.

However, given he’s had most of the past 18 months away from the sport as he recovered from a serious foot injury, warming up for the bigger events at Manly makes sense.

You have to go all the way back to 1997 when Slater won an event at Manly, so his return to Sydney from March 16-24 is certain to attract attention.

Meanwhile, on the Gold Coast, a massive cyclone swell is predicted for this weekend, which could play havoc with the fragile beaches.

For many years the Gold Coast has worked hard on sand pumping to maintain large clean sandy beaches but a cyclone swell some forecasters are predicting might reach 20 feet in wave sizes could easily wash away some of these beaches.

Cyclones are extremely unpredictable in the paths they take. Hopefully this one won’t hit the Gold Coast beaches so seriously. If it does, it would probably wash away the sand on all the points and make surfing conditions poor for some months. We’ve had fantastic summer waves all week. I hope you made the most of them because the outlook is for a lot of onshore, messy and small surf. Nothing great in the next four days, that’s for sure.