Coronavirus: Surfers ignore lockdown and calls from surf leaders to stay out of the water

Thursday, 26 March 2020

A surfer carves off the top of a nice Raglan wave weeks before the lockdown kicked in.

Surfers took to the waves in Raglan in spite of the coronavirus lockdown and calls from locals that no-one should be surfing.

Police spoke to surfers at Manu Bay on Thursday about how they got there, as driving to surf was not considered essential travel, acting Waikato District Commander Inspector Andrew Mortimore told Stuff.

Acting Waikato District Commander Inspector Andrew Mortimore says if it's not essential travel, it's not allowed under the lockdown.

Surfing - even solo - is a no-no while New Zealand is at alert level four and Raglan Point Boardriders chairperson Luke Hughes said they were asking people not to surf at Raglan.

'Please do not surf at Manu Bay, Whale Bay, Ngarunui Beach, Indicators or even Ruapuke for the following four weeks.

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He said it was not just about how people travelled to the beach, but also about the pressure it would put on medical staff if anything went wrong.

'It's not a grey area, it's pretty black and white in my eyes.'

Medical services were already going to be under pressure and he said people did not need to be adding to that.

'It's embarrassing people are trying to find a loophole.'

Surf2Surf, which provides live cameras of New Zealand surf reports and swell forecasts, said police and NZ Coastguard are now using their cameras.

They were tweaking and adding some camera views for them and would be stopping their camera imagery to the public, as well as reports and forecasting.

Surf lifesaving leaders were also telling people to stay out of the water after a swimmer got into trouble on a remote stretch of the Raglan coast just hours before the lockdown.

All surf lifesaving patrols in New Zealand were discontinued till further notice under the self-isolation requirements.

Emergency callout squads would remain on readiness should an on-water incident occur, but response times would not be as rapid as normal.

Police had also received questions around people going fishing, which Mortimore said was not appropriate during the isolation period, and also if people could swap their time isolating between their family home and batch.

'We want people to isolate at the same location.

'We're trying to minimise that traffic flow.

'The reasoning is so people are not moving across areas and across borders, we're trying to minimise that as much as we can,' he said.

They would be monitoring how people followed the rules to see how they needed to respond.

'The vast majority are being good, staying home and complying. But we need a high level of compliance.'