I am fed up, it's freezing cold and my wave count this winter is pitiful, yeah I have got in a few times although uncharacteristically for me I have managed to miss a few sessions, the weekend before last both Saturday and Sunday were showing a very rideable wave at the pier, but as I took my eye off the ball again, my wife seized the opportunity to get me fully embroiled in family life and by the time I'd noticed a wave the light and the tide had beaten me. Those tides were big, I noticed you could walk out dry to level with the main part of the pier.
What's going on? Am I losing it? My drive, enthusiasm, some may say fanaticism! I don't think so. It's just been so weak, a bit pathetic and a bit too small to get excited about. And with it being the middle of winter I kinda (foolishly) expected a little more. Dressing up like a gimp to ponce around in 2ft slop does feel a bit desperate even by my standards, so when the chance came to go west again at the weekend I initially was right up for it only to check the forecast and question will it be good enough to quench my thirst. In the end I thought not. So another week passes and only one measly surf at K just about keeps me going.
Surf 40/75 27th January
To be honest I wasn't expecting much but the desperation of the lack of surf still kept me just about enthusiastic enough to bother. When I got to K the wind was gently coming from the north-west and there was some signs of slight chop on the water. Matt (Hull Pig Dog Boy) was watching and waiting and only one person was in the water. The size looked 'alright' (go on Spanish tell me off for that one!) probably in the head high range, so I was quickly changed and out back. I had a few waves but it was hard to work out where best to sit, the swell was inconsistent and weak, but at least the sun was out and it started to feel warm. It wasn't long before a crowd of fellow desperado's had joined me and things were quite busy which only added to my frustration as I fell off yet another wave... I kept falling off, I originally put this down to weak waves and small board but then that little French dude Gordon Fontaine paddled out and the first wave I saw him take was a small right hander.... pump pump pump... bang.. 360 air... bloody hell he is good... And maybe these waves aren't so bad! I felt a little more frustrated.....
I hate winter, well do hate winter?... Actually yes, although it becomes a little more bearable when surfing a few big winter swells... Cmon February don't let me down..............
Tuesday 31 January 2012
Thursday 19 January 2012
Nice mellow clean day at the pier
Surf 39/74 19th January
I don't think it's been the best January for surf I've ever known, but there was a surprisingly clean mellow 2ft wave today at the pier and with crowds minimal, happy days were had by all who surfed it. Maybe the winterness is actually starting to put people off, the last week has felt pretty cold with that easterly wind, but today felt positively balmy! In my usual attire of full hood and mittens I actually felt hot and if anything I think it may have been slowing me down. Mason paddled out with no hood or gloves and said he felt fine and as he seemed to be catching impossibly fat waves with his skinny little board I felt more and more sluggish and old and found myself drooling over Dan's minimal as he took yet another long mellow right hander. The rights were long and mellow and the lefts were short but a bit more punchy, although not quite doing that sucky thing sadly. How long the banks will stay like this is anyone's guess but they are definitely producing a bit more consistency in the shape of the wave than is the norm.
I am definitely needing a bit more size and power and the thought of a nice long wall seems like a distant memory or hopeful dream, but I always say February is the best month down here, lets hope this Feb comes up with the goods.
I don't think it's been the best January for surf I've ever known, but there was a surprisingly clean mellow 2ft wave today at the pier and with crowds minimal, happy days were had by all who surfed it. Maybe the winterness is actually starting to put people off, the last week has felt pretty cold with that easterly wind, but today felt positively balmy! In my usual attire of full hood and mittens I actually felt hot and if anything I think it may have been slowing me down. Mason paddled out with no hood or gloves and said he felt fine and as he seemed to be catching impossibly fat waves with his skinny little board I felt more and more sluggish and old and found myself drooling over Dan's minimal as he took yet another long mellow right hander. The rights were long and mellow and the lefts were short but a bit more punchy, although not quite doing that sucky thing sadly. How long the banks will stay like this is anyone's guess but they are definitely producing a bit more consistency in the shape of the wave than is the norm.
I am definitely needing a bit more size and power and the thought of a nice long wall seems like a distant memory or hopeful dream, but I always say February is the best month down here, lets hope this Feb comes up with the goods.
Tuesday 17 January 2012
Horrible Messy Lumpy Cold Pier
Surf 38/73 Sunday 15th January
Saturday Dan called me, 'we're going to Croyde tomorrow make the flapjacks' The Sunday predictions were looking good with solid swell and offshore wind. I was getting pretty excited it felt like ages since I'd got stuck into some quality surf and with the strong offshore wind, surely there could be some fun little barrels to be had. About 9pm Saturday evening during my flapjack making my lovely wife did the unusual thing of making a fuss about me going off surfing for the day! Something about freezing weather, 3 kids, Billy poorly, young baby, 'what the hell am I going to do all day?' (My wife doesn't do staying in). And 'you said there were waves at the Pier tomorrow!' Hmmm it was obvious, my school boy error had been letting Char know that there 'might' be some 'crap' waves at the Pier tomorrow.
Now as wives of obsessive surfers go, mine is exceptionally understanding and accommodating to my surfing needs. Char seems happy to spend every holiday we have at a surf oriented destination and understands when K is on it is essential that I go and sometimes I spend the whole day there. Char will even change some of her own personal plans so I can go surfing. So you can imagine my shock when she was making a fuss about me going off to Devon for the day! So I thought I should do the right thing and let her know in no uncertain terms that I was going and she was not to make a fuss again...... Only joking... I called Dan and told him I should do the diplomatic thing and settle for the Pier.
Grimtastic was the pier, it was cold and cross onshore strong south easterly winds were making an already disorganised swell mostly unsurfable. Hugging the pier was the only way out back and once there the question of why I was bothering would regularly pop into my head. Generally the surf was unsatisfying, with constant paddling needed to stay or be in a good position. I had one wave of note, a steep peak near the pier popped up and I was bored of constantly taking the short rights towards the pier, as I came round the bottom of the peak I pushed hard up to the top of the wave and bashed off the foam ball of a lip which then catapulted me around the crumbly messy disorganised section, then the wave seemed to reform giving me a fast long ride all the way to the beach. I also managed to get a few more turns in. That 6'1 quad Dan has leant me really is becoming my go to board for every session. I should probably have got out the water on that wave but I foolishly thought I could get another like it, I didn't, that wave was a fluke! An our of mainly paddling felt like 3 and I was glad to be back in my clothes. An afternoon was spent walking through the Gardens, kids on bikes and wife happy. Not all bad.
Saturday Dan called me, 'we're going to Croyde tomorrow make the flapjacks' The Sunday predictions were looking good with solid swell and offshore wind. I was getting pretty excited it felt like ages since I'd got stuck into some quality surf and with the strong offshore wind, surely there could be some fun little barrels to be had. About 9pm Saturday evening during my flapjack making my lovely wife did the unusual thing of making a fuss about me going off surfing for the day! Something about freezing weather, 3 kids, Billy poorly, young baby, 'what the hell am I going to do all day?' (My wife doesn't do staying in). And 'you said there were waves at the Pier tomorrow!' Hmmm it was obvious, my school boy error had been letting Char know that there 'might' be some 'crap' waves at the Pier tomorrow.
Now as wives of obsessive surfers go, mine is exceptionally understanding and accommodating to my surfing needs. Char seems happy to spend every holiday we have at a surf oriented destination and understands when K is on it is essential that I go and sometimes I spend the whole day there. Char will even change some of her own personal plans so I can go surfing. So you can imagine my shock when she was making a fuss about me going off to Devon for the day! So I thought I should do the right thing and let her know in no uncertain terms that I was going and she was not to make a fuss again...... Only joking... I called Dan and told him I should do the diplomatic thing and settle for the Pier.
Grimtastic was the pier, it was cold and cross onshore strong south easterly winds were making an already disorganised swell mostly unsurfable. Hugging the pier was the only way out back and once there the question of why I was bothering would regularly pop into my head. Generally the surf was unsatisfying, with constant paddling needed to stay or be in a good position. I had one wave of note, a steep peak near the pier popped up and I was bored of constantly taking the short rights towards the pier, as I came round the bottom of the peak I pushed hard up to the top of the wave and bashed off the foam ball of a lip which then catapulted me around the crumbly messy disorganised section, then the wave seemed to reform giving me a fast long ride all the way to the beach. I also managed to get a few more turns in. That 6'1 quad Dan has leant me really is becoming my go to board for every session. I should probably have got out the water on that wave but I foolishly thought I could get another like it, I didn't, that wave was a fluke! An our of mainly paddling felt like 3 and I was glad to be back in my clothes. An afternoon was spent walking through the Gardens, kids on bikes and wife happy. Not all bad.
Thursday 12 January 2012
Xmas/New Year, lost passport tripping in Antwerp and a jolly at the Pier..
A Christmas Rant
Only now am I starting to count the cost for the gluttony and excess of my least favourite time of year... oh yeah yeah yeah 'Barr Humbug' that is me, and apparently it's now fashionable to be grumpy at Xmas but if so many of us hate it, can't we call an end to the madness? Ok what really gets me frustrated, apart from all the pointless amount of STUFF which changes hands for a reason I'm really not sure why, (seeing my children ripping open yet another present with a response which seems to suggest this is more of a chore than fun, as they eek out another 'thank you' to one of two hundred aunts who've given them yet another piece of pointless plastic crap which they didn't really want and I definitely didn't want, which usually takes more time for me to build, fix or put batteries in than the amount of time that is actually spent playing with said STUFF..) yes this annoys me... But not as much as the fact I have to do all this festive bollocks when I could be surfing... yes I've missed session, quite a few, and at a time when I was effectively on holiday!
I've been trying to think back to when my disillusionment with the festive period first started, I do remember my childhood excitement, but at what point did this dissolve into a pit of cynicism? What feels like another life, in my early 20s I worked for the BBC in transmission and my name was always first on the list to cover the Christmas period, double money, free food and drink and the perfect excuse not to travel to the family, it always seemed like a no-brainier. Or maybe it started when I first went to Uni, I was having such a good time, living away from home for the first time, cheap drinks and all the friends I could ever want was all suddenly interrupted by an annoying long winter break (I actually had maybe too much of a good time as I didn't make it to the second year!). Or maybe it was earlier than that, when I found out that the image of the big fat man in red was thought up by a very clever marketing executive for Cocacola cementing the commercialism of Christmas forever, making us all buy a shed load of plastic crap (STUFF). Or maybe it just gets in the way and that annoys me.
Last year I stayed in Bournemouth with just my wife and our kids, no fuss, no excess, no hassle and lots of fun, I also surfed Christmas eve at the pier and had one of my most memorable surfs ever on Boxing day at K with Gary. Now that was my best ever Christmas.
Forgotten Passport
After just about surviving Christmas with my family, I was happy to get a bit of extra work with Dan in the New Year period, fitting a boat cover in Rotterdam meant a bit of 'real work' for somebody who normally sits at a computer, it feels like a bit of relief to do something physical and there's always the promise of some lovely Belgium beer at our stop over in Antwerp the evening before the job. It meant missing some more surf but hey I wouldn't be the first person to miss a session due to working for once!
We left Dan's unit at around 2pm, the rain was hacking it down and the traffic was very heavy, we had barely driven 10 minutes and we were stuck in a jam on the Wessex Way, it wasn't the end of the world but I think Dan was struggling as he'd done about 48 hours without sleep and already driven several thousand miles in the past week. Anyway the banter was rife and we slowly moved on past a small accident, suddenly Dan decided to magically drop his phone out of his window, the crazy thing was the window was only slightly open with a gap so small it didn't appear possible to get a phone through, crazy panic issued and some how the phone was recovered in full working order.... So we drove on and the banter continued. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the Winchester services a journey which normally takes about 40 minutes, but the road was clearing and all was looking good, we could almost smell the beer..... It was about now I started to get a sick feeling, I'm not sure what made me think of it, and in some ways I was lucky I thought of it when I did, if we were at the tunnel there would have been no turning back. I had forgotten my Passport, Dan stayed relatively calm although I think I did see some steam coming out of his ears. After a short debate the only option seemed to be to turn around and it now meant there was no chance of a Belgium beer tonight.
We finally left for Rotterdam at 12.30am the banter and piss-take was now solely aimed at me and I had no comeback, also Dan now had to drive through the night to get us to the job on time, with no beer to look forward too, I was feeling like.... well the best description would be the opening lyric to the song 'Kill Rock n Roll' by System of A Down.
The job was completed and it was late, so the call was made to stay in Antwerp, our Belgium beer was at last coming... (24 hours late..) But hey it made it taste all the...er.. tastier....
Antwerp is a stunning looking city, fully cobbled stoned with beautiful well kept old buildings, (being an OCD surfer going somewhere with a bit of culture has never been high on my list of priorities). There appeared to be pubs and bars around every small road, alleyway and corner. The people all appear tall, well dressed and the women have an almost 'Parisian Chic' about them which looked out of the league to any scruffy hoody/combat clad Englishman. Even the young guys looked smart with their solicitor/accountant style casual attire, with long coats and scarfs being the standard uniform of choice.
The beer tasted very good, and being the light weight I am it wasn't long before my already loud voice was bellowing above the Jazz band playing in the background, as I commented on yet another beautiful woman who strolled passed me Dan was giving me the quiet down sign saying 'you know they can all speak perfect English!'. As we left the bars, adding to the surrealism of the night was the strange accented English chattering outside, it appears as though Belgium people when drunk speak English to each other... Or maybe I was so drunk I thought I could understand which ever language the Belgium people were deciding to speak that night and translating it into accented English, either way it all seemed very bizarre.
Maybe it was the alcohol or the lack of sleep or the people who spoke a strange drunken yet perfect English or even it was the hordes of beautiful tall slim women who were sending my mind into a tizzy, but I expect what was really tripping me out was the strangest nativity scene I have ever seen. At first glance all looks normal, I thought in a drunken moment 'arr my kids will love this' So I took a picture, but after closer examination like a strange analogy for Antwerp, all is not what it seems!
And so to the Surf
3 whole weeks of dryness for me... 'Oh Poor Ben' I hear you say in sarcastic tones, Yeah well as I earlier said I am OCD when it comes to surfing. I have a surprising amount of people ask me where has the blog gone, well it's here I've just not been surfing.
Surf 36/71 Thursay 5th January
So at last clean off shore lines were filling the bay and I was free... (well as free as I get)... to surf. Surprisingly the pier didn't look that busy when I arrived although the swell was infrequent and tended to have only 1 main take off point which exaggerated the crowd. As I paddled out I saw Geordie and Gary splitting the peak and thought this is going to be a great session. Slightly frustratingly for a short boarder the long borders were dominant and a bit of a tactical game of trying to nab a wave under the nose of a long boarder or trying to be the deepest out back when everyone else had gone and just hoping there was 1 more wave in a set coming through. Drop-ins were rife but to be honest I had my fill, I came out unscathed and I think I had some fun. The rights were holding up beautifully and I got some really long rides, The lefts were short and not quite as punchy as they've been lately, so I decided after a while to leave them to Maison and Oli who were dominant and putting on a show for the pier onlookers!
Guy has loads of pictures of the session http://houseofbonzer.blogspot.com/2012/01/carnage-at-pier-featuring-geordie.html
Surf 37/72 Friday 6th January
Had a little jolly to K with Gary, small and infrequent swell mainly left me frustrated although I got extremely lucky on 2 nice waves which walled up a bit for me.
Now I just need a little bit more.
Only now am I starting to count the cost for the gluttony and excess of my least favourite time of year... oh yeah yeah yeah 'Barr Humbug' that is me, and apparently it's now fashionable to be grumpy at Xmas but if so many of us hate it, can't we call an end to the madness? Ok what really gets me frustrated, apart from all the pointless amount of STUFF which changes hands for a reason I'm really not sure why, (seeing my children ripping open yet another present with a response which seems to suggest this is more of a chore than fun, as they eek out another 'thank you' to one of two hundred aunts who've given them yet another piece of pointless plastic crap which they didn't really want and I definitely didn't want, which usually takes more time for me to build, fix or put batteries in than the amount of time that is actually spent playing with said STUFF..) yes this annoys me... But not as much as the fact I have to do all this festive bollocks when I could be surfing... yes I've missed session, quite a few, and at a time when I was effectively on holiday!
I've been trying to think back to when my disillusionment with the festive period first started, I do remember my childhood excitement, but at what point did this dissolve into a pit of cynicism? What feels like another life, in my early 20s I worked for the BBC in transmission and my name was always first on the list to cover the Christmas period, double money, free food and drink and the perfect excuse not to travel to the family, it always seemed like a no-brainier. Or maybe it started when I first went to Uni, I was having such a good time, living away from home for the first time, cheap drinks and all the friends I could ever want was all suddenly interrupted by an annoying long winter break (I actually had maybe too much of a good time as I didn't make it to the second year!). Or maybe it was earlier than that, when I found out that the image of the big fat man in red was thought up by a very clever marketing executive for Cocacola cementing the commercialism of Christmas forever, making us all buy a shed load of plastic crap (STUFF). Or maybe it just gets in the way and that annoys me.
Last year I stayed in Bournemouth with just my wife and our kids, no fuss, no excess, no hassle and lots of fun, I also surfed Christmas eve at the pier and had one of my most memorable surfs ever on Boxing day at K with Gary. Now that was my best ever Christmas.
Forgotten Passport
After just about surviving Christmas with my family, I was happy to get a bit of extra work with Dan in the New Year period, fitting a boat cover in Rotterdam meant a bit of 'real work' for somebody who normally sits at a computer, it feels like a bit of relief to do something physical and there's always the promise of some lovely Belgium beer at our stop over in Antwerp the evening before the job. It meant missing some more surf but hey I wouldn't be the first person to miss a session due to working for once!
We left Dan's unit at around 2pm, the rain was hacking it down and the traffic was very heavy, we had barely driven 10 minutes and we were stuck in a jam on the Wessex Way, it wasn't the end of the world but I think Dan was struggling as he'd done about 48 hours without sleep and already driven several thousand miles in the past week. Anyway the banter was rife and we slowly moved on past a small accident, suddenly Dan decided to magically drop his phone out of his window, the crazy thing was the window was only slightly open with a gap so small it didn't appear possible to get a phone through, crazy panic issued and some how the phone was recovered in full working order.... So we drove on and the banter continued. It took us about an hour and a half to get to the Winchester services a journey which normally takes about 40 minutes, but the road was clearing and all was looking good, we could almost smell the beer..... It was about now I started to get a sick feeling, I'm not sure what made me think of it, and in some ways I was lucky I thought of it when I did, if we were at the tunnel there would have been no turning back. I had forgotten my Passport, Dan stayed relatively calm although I think I did see some steam coming out of his ears. After a short debate the only option seemed to be to turn around and it now meant there was no chance of a Belgium beer tonight.
We finally left for Rotterdam at 12.30am the banter and piss-take was now solely aimed at me and I had no comeback, also Dan now had to drive through the night to get us to the job on time, with no beer to look forward too, I was feeling like.... well the best description would be the opening lyric to the song 'Kill Rock n Roll' by System of A Down.
The massive industry at the huge port of Rotterdam. A lot of STUFF
The job was completed and it was late, so the call was made to stay in Antwerp, our Belgium beer was at last coming... (24 hours late..) But hey it made it taste all the...er.. tastier....
Somebodies million pound boat being carefully loaded onto the Ship
It's just more stuff
Danny Boy
Antwerp is a stunning looking city, fully cobbled stoned with beautiful well kept old buildings, (being an OCD surfer going somewhere with a bit of culture has never been high on my list of priorities). There appeared to be pubs and bars around every small road, alleyway and corner. The people all appear tall, well dressed and the women have an almost 'Parisian Chic' about them which looked out of the league to any scruffy hoody/combat clad Englishman. Even the young guys looked smart with their solicitor/accountant style casual attire, with long coats and scarfs being the standard uniform of choice.
The Stunning 130 Metre High Cathedral in Antwerp
Maybe it was the alcohol or the lack of sleep or the people who spoke a strange drunken yet perfect English or even it was the hordes of beautiful tall slim women who were sending my mind into a tizzy, but I expect what was really tripping me out was the strangest nativity scene I have ever seen. At first glance all looks normal, I thought in a drunken moment 'arr my kids will love this' So I took a picture, but after closer examination like a strange analogy for Antwerp, all is not what it seems!
Antwerp Nativity!?!?
3 whole weeks of dryness for me... 'Oh Poor Ben' I hear you say in sarcastic tones, Yeah well as I earlier said I am OCD when it comes to surfing. I have a surprising amount of people ask me where has the blog gone, well it's here I've just not been surfing.
(pic sent to me by a friend) another session missed!
Surf 36/71 Thursay 5th January
So at last clean off shore lines were filling the bay and I was free... (well as free as I get)... to surf. Surprisingly the pier didn't look that busy when I arrived although the swell was infrequent and tended to have only 1 main take off point which exaggerated the crowd. As I paddled out I saw Geordie and Gary splitting the peak and thought this is going to be a great session. Slightly frustratingly for a short boarder the long borders were dominant and a bit of a tactical game of trying to nab a wave under the nose of a long boarder or trying to be the deepest out back when everyone else had gone and just hoping there was 1 more wave in a set coming through. Drop-ins were rife but to be honest I had my fill, I came out unscathed and I think I had some fun. The rights were holding up beautifully and I got some really long rides, The lefts were short and not quite as punchy as they've been lately, so I decided after a while to leave them to Maison and Oli who were dominant and putting on a show for the pier onlookers!
Guy has loads of pictures of the session http://houseofbonzer.blogspot.com/2012/01/carnage-at-pier-featuring-geordie.html
Surf 37/72 Friday 6th January
Had a little jolly to K with Gary, small and infrequent swell mainly left me frustrated although I got extremely lucky on 2 nice waves which walled up a bit for me.
Now I just need a little bit more.
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