Swell arrived at the North Devon coast today (pictured). It’s been a very, very long time since we received a groundswell over 6 inches. I floored it after work. Dived in and spent an eternity paddling out. Very meagre pickings from a two and a half hour session.
All the usual stuff crowds in on me after sessions like this one. Take up long boarding,just release the middle aged spread, drink less ale or surf at Saunton.
Bollocks to all of that. Surf to survive
It’s that time of year again.Swells have started to move in with some regularity. The weak windswells of the summer have shifted stage left for groomed groundswells but dammit the evenings are drawing in with the synchronicity that our seasons seem to impose upon us in these sceptred isles.
The dawnie is the only option other than the weekends for working class surfers around the globe during the dark months. In urban California this must mean joining countless grumpy commuters in a quickie before rejoining the highway . In the Shire it involves a more solitary half awake ramble down some mossy paths in a sharp wind followed by a ‘f*ckit I’m here now anyway’ type decision to surf the less than optimal conditions that frequently bely magicseaweed’s predictions. The autumnal setting back of the clocks only means that this self imposed torture can continue well into the winter. For me this aspect of my solitary pursuit is one of the most unpleasant but ultimately rewarding times. It is hard to describe the triumph of squeaking into work just on time having seen the sun rise and ridden a few overhead reef waves.
Image courtesy of Damian Fulton
This photo was taken in late March after a short but superlative session at high tide Croyde. It was a muscular swell.
Things could not be more different at the moment. There has not been quality surf for a good while. I have been swimming the width of this bay in the evenings trying to rehab my back.Not much more to add.
A quick swim and a micro bonfire at Downend Point this morning. What could be better?
My back is giving me gyp but it survived a surf with my daughter on Friday evening.
Oh and the sun shone too 🙂
It looks so serene in the early summer sun doesn’t it? Croyde beach at its bucolic best. I expect it to look nothing like this during the weekend.
My daughter is about to experience a right of passage you see. Yes, she is going to a rock festival, this weekend by the shores of this beach. Or at least she is going to Oceanfest which is the nearest thing we have in North Devon to a counter cultural happening.It’s genuinely a big deal for her. There are bands that she likes (that I have never heard of) ,she can hang with her friends, camp out in the rain and witness the crazy goings on. Her chaperone ,read father, on the other hand will endure the strong winds and heavy rain, requests for more food and rave music played in the mud.
Come Friday evening things will look differently to one of us.I will report back to you my experiences after the weekend. Now where did I put my bandana?
The ironically named P-land delivered typical fare yesterday evening. Close outs, waves that back off, promising peaks that seem to recede to the horizon, punishing paddle outs and very short rides. Putsbourgh does have many redeeming qualities , the clean water, the cliff line of Baggy Point, shelter afforded by the cliffs from the prevailing winds and the view down to Woolacombe being but a few of them but it has to be said that the quality of the surf is not one of them. True, on my first visit more than 15 years ago I experienced a memorable session which mainly included long looping left running barrels. I remember coming out after dark and receiving some compliments for my surfing. At the time it seemed the place for me, I moved to North Devon not long after. Unfortunately this was one of two times that I experienced such conditions. The real P-land revealed it’s tawdry self in the years and months that followed. Perhaps because of my first experience I still enter the water here with hope in my heart but it is so rarely justified.
G-land or Gradgagan, P-land’s Indonesian cousin has long looping left running barrels most days of the year. The water is clear and it is 18°C warmer than P-land is currently. Need I say more?
The snap above is of a surfer about to jump in the rip that runs along the base of the cliffs. He will be sucked out into the lineup without too much energy lost from paddling and duck diving. Arriving in the lineup he will look at the lines of swell and feel optimistically about the remaining light hours of the evening. He does not yet realize that the stoke and joy will be squeezed from him during his session and he will return to shore a depressed and beaten man. Why is it he will undoubtedly return for the same treatment again just as I and many others do?
Double click on the photo to feel the quality.
More Croyde from the Easter weekend. Easter Sunday when it started to drop, nice though . Double click on the photo to feel the quality. More on the way tomorrow.
Taken at 5.30pm today before I paddled out.
The sets continued to pour in after I got out at 6.30pm
The sun contemplates setting over Lundy Island
There is so much swell that lethal Croyde reef breaks all by it’s lonesome.
A good day in many respects. I surfed the point in slightly disappointing conditions and then had a short session at Croyde to make up for the lapse in judgement (Again? Ed).
I’m not surfing well at the moment. Alex, regrettably I think that you have a point.
Experienced surfers know which local breaks work under specific conditions. This weekend’s combination of medium sized swell and easterly winds made this particularly easy for the savvy senior surfer. As I pointed out in the previous post these conditions were “just what the doctor ordered”.
I woke early on Saturday and checked the webcams. Seeing there was plenty of swell at Croyde I headed for the point. As the car descended down the road to the bay a portent of the weekend ahead hove into view. The lines of swell seemed seemed a little smaller than I had anticipated. I Ignored the omen.Five minutes later I found myself starring out at the point whilst trying to shelter from a persistent cutting wind. There was no swell. Every few minutes a wind burnished foot high peak broke and quickly closed out on the the reef.
What to do? Head for the comfort of Croyde or Downend Point? Nah I felt compelled to seek perfect isolation. Turning tail I drove towards the border. The place I was headed for would be empty and magnify the small swell. “Pretty in Pink” would be a given a chance to prove herself in the mixture of reef and beach beneath the cliffs of this special cove.The car drew up to the edge of the cliff but I had already caught a glimpse of the ocean. Powerful lines of swell pushed into the cove , each sharp line punctuated by a heavy spray from the strong offshore winds. In the twenty minutes it had taken me to find my way through the lanes the world had spun and rearranged itself !I trod around the beach , taking some truly appalling photos , successfully missing the mixture of dappled sunlight and spray against the stratified rocks. I had found a solitary spot with overhead waves and off shore winds. The trouble was they were largely unsurfable. The swell was too powerful , most of them unceremoniously closing out.
Around about this time a surfer of 35 years experience would have carefully evaluated the conditions and the errors of judgement made by 9.30am that morning. He could have concluded that he should have waited for the tide for a few hours and taken advantage of the conditions closer to home experienced by Fisher Viking (click here for an excellent blog and photos) and a good number of others no doubt. Not this surfer though, he had other ideas.
Stanbury Mouth is a spot I have never surfed. Not many do. It’s probably something to do with the mile long walk down a very soggy trail, and the clamber down the waterfall onto the beach or the far more arduous return journey. Ignoring the two surfers who peered down the valley and then left (they must have been surfers, only surfers peer in that way) I slid and staggered my way to the secluded beach. I surfed or more accurately paddled out against the lines of white water and then fought the swirling rip that sucked me uncomfortably close to the rocks of the point for 45 minutes and then capitulated a broken and frustrated man.Very strong winds hamper a man carrying a surfboard whilst wearing slick soled wetsuit boots along a cliff path. The beauty of the double bays and extraordinarily high cliffs and the latent surf potential started to slip from my mind and was replaced by a nagging question.
“Why the f##k am I doing this?”
I cogitated whilst I warmed up driving home. “How did such a promising morning disappear”? I put it down to , experience…which is considerable as I have already said.
Later in the day, I eschewed the powerfully breaking peaks at high tide Croyde for the softer charms of Saunton. Whilst a pod of competing longboarders dealt well with the conditions the shortboarders who had the bad judgement to paddle out spent their time fighting the combination of the very strong offshore winds and famously corpulent walls. Few who surfed boards under 8 feet long rode any waves of consequence. One last look at Croyde before driving home confirmed the afternoon too had been frittered away.
A new morning dawned with more grey skies and biting off shore winds. Using my 35 years of collected wiles and nouse I joined a throng of surfers and enjoyed the low tide three foot peaks and hollow walls on offer at Croyde. If you can n’t beat them , join them.
Painting by Glyn Macey
I try not to be tempted into the misuse of sporting cliché but my weekend fits this particularly used and abused one so well, here goes.
It was a weekend of two halves. The portents were positive. The forecast promised swell and offshore winds for the weekend.We met up with friends on Friday at a local eating establishment before moving on to our first visit to Barnstaple Comedy Club. I grinned and chortled through the first hour of the acts happily enough, bravely sitting in the front row. My more reticent friends and wife stayed anchored close to the comfort of the bar . The weekend then took a rude lurch toward the lower quartile. My wife exited the club without reference to me and only the briefest of explanations to our friends. Puzzled, I trod the dark lanes back to Landkey Town. The rumoured illness quickly became all too apparent within less than half a minute of returning to the familial seat. Food poisoning with all her bilious hued liquors paid us a visit for the night. Angie came off worst by far and I escaped with a stomach that did a good impression of a cement mixer.
Saturday dawned with sun and gentle easterly winds that strangely for the time of year supported temperatures in the low teens. Eyeball displayed the evidence of a friendly little swell. We huddled by a warm TV for most of the day.I occasionally turned my head away from the cheerless 6 Nations Rugby to look upon the early spring day unfolding without active involvement from us. However at least I can recommend the unexpectedly subversive ‘Private Lives of Pippa Lee’ found in the depths of iplayer.
Sunday arrived with all evidence of the green fingered witch and springtime disappeared. In their place were iron grey skies with piercingly invigorated easterlies. The webcam displayed some pleasing looking bumps at Croyde. After only a little deliberation I had a chilly session in excellent and occasionally dredging 3 to 4 foot tubes but frankly the will was not quite there today.Oh well , there were plenty of others out there getting as barrelled as it is possible to do at a British beach break.
I realise this entry is probably characteristic of the lower orders of the blogasphere but sometimes it is such a good way to set aside regret of the less than optimal days in life and the general mawkishness they extract from me. The positive to be taken is that we invested in another winter wetsuit for my daughter who will be keeping me company in the water from April onwards. This is something that makes her father ridiculously happy.
WAXING LYRICAL 