Saturday

The promised swell never really materialised in the end. I think Friday was the day TBH with reports of four foot perfection later in the afternoon.

The swell was meant to build and winds remain light but typically - the winds increased a lot - the strongest winds all week long arrived, but at least they were SE and offshore.

Rattz couldn't make it so I arranged to meet up with Doc at the same spot I'd surfed on Friday morning.

A few cars were already parked up but not too many. I fiddled with my new camera mounting for a while and decided not to bring it as I was concerned about losing it if the swell was as big as predicted - it wasn't.

Nevertheless we were greeted with clean, howling offshore 2-3ft. We found a nice peak to ourselves and surfed small clean waves for an hour before the tide spoilt our sand bank.

Doc was surfing his new board - a shocking pink flowery, 'Pot Bellied Nugget'. He'd bought it for a good price - virtually new but not seen the colour ;)

I've re-named the board 'Big Gay Al' for him as it's much more fitting than 'Penelope'...

Doc paddled out with his longboard mentality, sitting deep and struggled to begin with, mistiming his paddle or getting his feet positioning wrong.

New boards can be tricky - either heaven or hell. I've had to work on pretty much much all of my last 4 boards as none have been the same as I've been used to riding but that's what surfboard experimentation is all about! Mastering different shapes.

He's gone down from a 9ft mal to a 5'6" egg shape so a bit of a mental re-adjustment and foot positioning was needed.

He got into it after a while though and found his feet. I picked off one lone right which was perfectly shaped and had a nice long ride off the back, landing a floater to finish. The rest were okay, just a bit small for my liking.

The wave shape to our right was perfect with little mini 'Kirra' barrels firing all the way down the line but it was just a bit small for us which was frustrating.

We were getting a bit cold and the time had come to call it a day or gamble. I figured we should gamble and get out and walk down the beach for a new peak; just in case it was bigger.

Thankfully it was and Doc picked us out a nice peak with a left and a right and no-one on it! The sets were bigger, 3ft+ and nice and hollow but at times hard to get into. The inside was firing though.

We paddled out and instantly felt more power as the waves exploded on our backs. We both enjoyed the last hour with Doc opting for more lefts and me tending to go right. It's funny how some boards ride.

I managed to sneak into a couple of quick cover ups and Doc ended on his best ride of the day with a nice long left with a good lip bash to finish!

The wind had chilled us both and I now sit here with a cold. Not a bad 2 hour+ session but not as classic as we'd hoped for.

Still when you have a new board, just getting it into waves is always nice and I think we might be seeing Doc riding 'Big Gay Al' a lot more this winter!

That afternoon we popped down to Swansea to visit 'Laidback Larry' who'd helped organise Baefest and I hogged out on pig roast and paella! :)

A nice event with a cool atmosphere and a perfect way to end the day. I've now got man flu so out of action for a couple of days me thinks.