Internet Forecasting vs Old Fashioned Eyeballing

A long time between swells saw the crowd numbers spike midweek a fortnight ago at Snappers with 25-30 in the water at one stage but then come the weekend Saturday arvo saw just 3 guys surfing fun 3ft Snappers. The situation kind of perplexed me at the time but then I made the connection once again and realised that a hell of a lot us rely heavily on Internet surf forecasting nowadays.
Excuses like "Im too busy to go and check it", often arises and another great one I've heard is "what? do you reckon there will be waves tommorow swellmap only says 2 out of 10"..
Leaves a lot to the imagination but the bottom line is that if you solely rely on what "the net" says , you are going to miss a lot of surf in Nelson as those mystical swells just roll on by!!
Take this week for example, 3 days of surfable conditions when big brother said it was flat.

(above): "Dave", sent in this shot of a fabled point somwhere along the Heaphy last week.
Some of you will know but you wont find it on the net.

Moving right along this week saw the closure of "sewer-side drive" the road leading from the first carpark at Boulder Bank drive up to Snappers forcing the hardy crew to walk for 10 minutes up to Snappers. Oh dear!!! If the road was closed permanently this walk would become the norm and would probably infact create a little bit of "beach culture" which we often lack due to the convenience of there being a carpark so close and the fact that we have no beach at snappers,

Rumours rolling about of epic solo sessions around the grounds through the week and those making the walk up to Snappers being rewarded for their efforts with the lazy crew graded out.

Food for thought,