Best Surf Since France.....

What a few weeks it has been, actually I think we've had consistent surf ever since Cody was born, I rarely have the opportunity or inclination to pick and chose surfs, letting some days and waves pass by unridden but over the last few weeks I have. Obviously some good days were unavoidably missed due to new babies, illness and death but apart from Thursday 10th which looked to be a good day at K but coincided with my grandfathers funeral I don't think I missed any stand out sessions.


The funeral was.... well I want to say good but feel like it is the wrong thing to say? I didn't drop the coffin but it was a very nervous moment. The subsequent church services (one at the crematorium and one at a church later) were a good chance to hear some about the great life my grandfather had led, but if I have to hear another hymn I may go slightly insane.    


November 11th
Surf 58/23
Surfed the west side of the pier in the afternoon, waves were in the 3ft region with a strong south easterly cross onshore wind, the paddle out was hard and if you didn't stick close to the pier you were quickly swept down the beach, the waves were hard to surf and if I went left I had to get out and try to paddle back out next to the pier. It wasn't the best surf I've ever had! 


November 12th
Surf 59/24
Woopie doodaa happy days, it has been a long time since I really enjoyed a surf like this. I had book marked today as potentially good for a while, but as we all know, especially on the south coast, things don't always go to plan. I nearly had the in-laws down for the day and they had planned to get here for 8am! But by some strange piece of luck Billy my 5 year old son was horrendously sick the night before so we thought we should cancel the parents thinking we didn't want to spread any germs, also our house smelt of sick. This then left me free to surf, although Char wanted me to go early and get back early.


Getting up was hard and I felt strangely unmotivated and very tired, I met Gav before 7am in the car park and he said the waves were in the shoulder high range, 'that's a shame' I thought, as I was expecting bigger, so I decided to take my 6'2 shortboard. We were the first to paddle out, the sun was low in a clear sky and there was virtually no wind with consistent regular swell pumping through in the head to head and a half range! 3 friendly guys from Brighton were next to paddle out and seemed very impressed with the conditions. After taking a couple of waves I soon realised I was on completely the wrong board and needed to change, my 6'2 felt like a match stick and very unstable in the big swooping drops and the now nice long walled up waves, also the crowd was just starting to pick up so Gav and I decided to move spots.


Paddling out on my 6'6 Lynch gave me so much confidence and I started to go for every wave that came my way no matter how late I was, I had some absolute stonking rights, some exciting big drops and and a few washing machine moments when I really was just a bit too late (or slow!), 2 hours into my session Gary and  Dan Taylor paddled out with big grins and whooops, it took Dan a little while to find his feet but when he did he got some of the best waves of his life. 3 hours passed quickly and although my legs were cramping and I had a weird pins and needle feeling in my arms and my shoulders were burning, I was still hungry for more waves, but my late take offs were now unmake-able from the pure fatigue in my body and I was now mainly only able to observe others getting great waves. I saw Gary get a stonking right just before I had a mellow wave home, and with the tide dropping and swell increasing I think things were only likely to get better.


These are the days we live for down here, they don't come very much but when they do the stoke is so high I can go without for a few days after.... err ok maybe one day to recover.... err actually if it was like it the next day I would go again.... I'm speaking crap aren't I!


Driving home, during the time I was trying to work out how I would explain myself to my wife, I got a text from Dan Magee saying he was in hospital with an unknown illness. It put a bit of a downer on things as how exactly was I going to brag about this session to him now! Hopefully he will be back in the water soon.            


November 14th
Surf 60/25
Another session at K nothing great the waves were 2/3ft but fun on my fish and nice and clean only a couple out which made things mellow.


Wow and that is 60 surfs since I started this blog and 25 surfs this Autumn.