Warmer waters

Good news for South Wales surfers as the much awaited scarweather buoy finally come back online.

No longer will we have to leave the comfort of our homes to stroll down the beach and look...

It's been making up for lost time too and delivering some sweet data lately.

Saturday saw me getting some severe poundings as I battled rather large french style beach break at my usual spot.

After a solid 15-20 minute paddle out I arrived out back (I think? - hard to tell as there was so much water was moving around) to find my compadre - Johnny Stoneman paddling sideways inside of me in the 6ft shoredump....

Needless to say he didn't last long and disappeared inside never to be seen again! ;)

I was determined to get something out of it though and carried on paddling, searching for a wave. The rip was intense and kept dragging me off the peak but I eventually picked off a few nice rides.

One left, saw me free falling down a big angling beast, well over head and preparing to jump off mid face before remembering my old 8.5" skip frye fin would see me right.

It's an incredible thing and the only board I've ever owned that makes such steep angular drops. It just seems to hold the nose and lifts the back end as you go down.

At one point I watched what must've been a solid 6-7ft left hander, barrel for about 100 yards with the thickest lip I've ever seen down there and spit a whole load of air out of the end funnel like 'Pipe'. You probably could have fitted 2 surfers inside it.

The WCSC v Aberavon 'border control' surf comp went down at Aber and Claire Beach has posted a few nice pics on Facebook. This gives you an idea of the swell size we had on Saturday!

Aberavon won it this year. I believe Steve Horn is taking the blame for it this year, having bombed out of his longboard heat with 2 big wipeouts!

Steve told me he only needed something like a 1.4 on a wave for WCSC to win so just standing up would have been enough. LOL



I continued to get rag dolled and have my board wrenched from out of my hands by the 'tiger' before eventually tiring.

A couple more local fellas joined me - blods, wilky and jamie but they didn't get many before giving up too. Relentless 6ft+ sets finished us off.

As we walked back, johnny rainbow, wergil and grant arrived - late as ever guys! and I quickly informed them that they wouldn't be getting out back today (although I did give grant 50/50 odds) ;)

They didn't.. but made a good call and hit the rivermouth afterwards where they scored some nice waves by all accounts.

A pesky SUP rider at the rivermouth on sat morning by Claire Beach:


Monday - met up with Mr Stoneman again who had "found his mojo again" and was stoked that I'd called him. It only takes one good surf to turn it around :)

Despite the onshore wind and smallish conditions, we made the most of it.

Rest bay just after high tide delivered 2-ft rides over the rocks @ golf rights kept us both happy. The rides were surprisingly long!

The crowds were non existent and the wind gradually dropped off to light cross-off shore. With sets nudging 4ft, it turned into a really enjoyable session and John's coaching in Lanza has def paid off.

He was looking like an old pro at times, working the wave nicely and no longer standing like an albatross ;)

The surf was pumping again yesterday as we were hit with a solid 2m+ swell and 12 second wave period. Out west it was nudging 4m! the winds played ball too with SSE winds in the morning.

To round off the week, I got in today at first light with Rattz and we enjoyed punchy 3 footers around low tide. The light nw wind went dead northerly and offered up a few nice long rides for both of us.


Pic courtesy of porthcawlsurf. That may even be my leg going through the wave:



The waves were pretty fast and it was tricky to race sections at times if you chose badly but I managed to throw my old single fin around a fair bit which was good fun. Again no crowds - 4 people in :)

The sea's warming up now though...7+ degrees and I can almost smell the summer crowds already. Won't be long before the hoods and dreaded winter rubber comes off.