Every day, driving along the Captain Cook Highway skirting the picturesque coastline between Cairns and Port Douglas, he gazes across the turquoise abyss of the Coral Sea.

“And every day I just look out there and go, ‘F***, I wish there was a wave’,” laments veteran surfer and developer David Imgraben.

Of course, with the Great Barrier Reef living up to its name just offshore, the forces of nature have conspired against his endless pipe dream.