February in New Zealand is mid-summer and this means beaches, swimming, BBQs, and generally chilling (often literally).  One beach we frequent, a 50-minute drive, is Ngarunui.  It is a popular surf beach near the coastal town of Raglan on New Zealand’s west coast.  Here, the Tasman Sea rolls in, as it has done for millennia; the ancestral Tasman began to form about 80 million years ago, when the NZ subcontinent split from what then was a combined Australian – Antarctic continental block.  The ‘Ditch’, as the Tasman is often called, is about 2000km wide so there is lots of space to develop a decent wave set. Continue reading →