The man had climbed over protective bars several feet further back from the edge in his pursuit of the ultimate wake-up call and was fortunate to survive as the area was engulfed by water.
Right across New South Wales, coastline was battered by similar waves ramped up by 50mph winds. Sydney Harbour was turned into a no-go zone for ferries after the Australian Bureau of Meteorology issued warnings of impending gales for most of the coast.Specialist marine forecasting and surf camera service Coastalwatch said a rare weather event and the closeness of the low pressure system was the reason for the ocean's violence. 'We had something called 'captured fetch' happen and it's pretty rare here,' chief forecaster Ben McCartney said.
Waves are created when wind blows over the a certain area of the seas. This is called the fetch. A 'captured fetch' happens when a storm moves in the same direction of a fetch, so that the wind keeps pushing the same waves following them.