Sunday morning worship

There were waves all weekend for the chosen few. Saturday didn't really serve up much. Fin and I went for a surf check first thing and Coney was a foot and clean.

We took a look at Rest Bay later as the tide dropped back to watch Rattz in action but there wasn't much surf on offer, the odd 2-3ft crumbly wave but the sea looked very rippy sand the period low. Still it was a wave but my back was still giving me gip so I decided to hold off.

Sunday was much more like it, a light ENE first thing so I grabbed my new wetsuit and ventured down to ledges. I wasn't alone but a friendly crew out back. Considering the size and quality of swell I was amazed at how quiet it was with only a handful of surfer's vans parked up.

Wind: light ENE
Swell: 1.65m
Wave period: 8.2 seconds, 265 degrees
Water temp: 12.6C

I could tell from my slow jog down, that my back wasn't right, jarring with each step but I paddled out anyway.

The new wetsuit is a snug fit so only intensified the pain in my back but I caught around 10 waves.

The wave is fast, sucky and barrelling with a big drop so not ideally suited to an old man with a painful back but I did my best. It was a good 3-4ft and a lovely shape. A guy on a SUP was stood on the beach contemplating the paddle out and did eventually get out. I saw him ride a few on the shoulder and have one spectacularly good slap from the lip :)

Most of my rides left consisted od pig dog crouching takeoffs, late and then standing further along the face. I had a couple of nice rides and a few short, fast rights but I wasn't comfortable.

When I surf I like to give it all or nothing and it's a bit soul destroying surfing with the handbrake on so paddled in after 30 mins. I think it's going to take another couple of weeks before I'm surf fit again :(

Then a longboarder arrived along with a slightly clueless shortboarder and 3 spongers. Time to go!

I paddled into a medium sized left, took off, saw the kooky shortboarder paddling the wrong way towards me and ended up roding straight over his boots on my way down the line. What a twonk!
Lovely morning though and not too cold, still surfing without a hood which is nice. As I walked back, the tide was dropping and lots of barreling peaks began to appear so I'm sure plenty of waves were ridden later!

Over the headland...

Monday morning

 Light E winds
1.21m
16 seconds

It's still good just not as big although the tide was pretty low at 7.30am. Clean 3ft waves were coming in and typically it got good just as it was time to go although was getting a bit deep too...so who knows?! I'm sure other spots are all time today

The wave period is till insanely good too thanks to a 987 i Biscay and slight ridge of high pressure over the north of the UK:

I got in for a quick hour before work and the nursery run today at Rest Bay. Fin was a bit late starting pre-school but dad had a couple of nice waves!

Bumped into Rattz, Aran and Chris out back. Rattz was on his twin mini-simmons ripping to pieces!

First wave, aran drops in on me and falls off! LOL much hilarity was had ;) Huey punished him later with a nice over the falls bail on a wave he prob would've made. I was inside standing still watching and waiting incase his board hit me.

Very funny to see and I had one myself earlier as I was sucked over after my board!

Let's hope there's some tomorrow but looking at the chart, that low is running out of gas and there's not anything spectacular behind it. There will be waves but we've had the best of it for now...

17 seconds to comply

0.9-1.3m
16-17.8 seconds!
258 degrees
Gusty E wind

It's not every day we get epic surf but this weekend was pretty special. The Splashup was a big success in Porthcawl but sadly the waves on Saturday night didn't deliver for the night comp.

It went ahead anyway on foamies and by all accounts a huge cheer went up whenever anyone stood up!

Tom Anderson won but it was then held again in better waves on Sunday night but I'm not sure who won?

I got up early for a Sunday and was down at Sker for 7:30am. The sker buoy was only registering half a metre from a 3am update but the period was 16 seconds!

The carpark was already jostling so I knew it would be busy. Bumped into Mike and Kev so wondered down with them after laughing at a group of longboarders heading off towards the lake, clearly lost and wondering where the beach was!

We arrived to finda stiff E wind blowing, quite a rip running along the whole beach and clean 3ft surf. It looked okay and would only improve on the push. I stretched and paddled out after the boys hoping for a dry hair paddle-out. It wasn't to be!

A set came in and absolutely nailed me ;) It was a big bigger than 3ft and had the power of a small elephant behind it.

Snagged a few fast, steep rights to begin with but didn't get any good rides, just drops and explosions around my ears. Eventually things settled down on the push andin between long lulls of complete flatness we scored some nice waves.

Mike took a few good beatings as his old tired arms failed to dive under a few lips! ;) But it gave us a giggle as he was washed inside and then down the coast in the rip for a while but he kept plugging away and got back to us eventually!

The waves got better and bigger with each surge of the tide. We found a nice little 3-4ft bank for about 30 mins which served me up a little tube. I didn't exit but had a lovely almond view from inside as I tucked into a tiny barrel on a 3 footer.

The boys went home and I paddled over to the middle peak and bumped into harv, aggers & co. It was heaving down there, surfers galore but most not doing much, tea bagging and generally getting in the way. I wish they'd stay at Rest Bay!

Ianto pulled back from a nice right so I did a quick swivel and dropped into a sweet right, paddled back and another oe came my way - it was rude not to so I took a steep drop to find Harv had paddled inside of me and gone too! lol we rode the wave rail to spongey rail, had a laugh and then bailed under the close out behind us.

I caught one more sweet right, this time Aggers dropped in but after hollering like Tarzan for a few seconds he got the idea and jumped out of my way :)

A great session! The middle and left peaks were absoluttely thumping and it was a solid 5ft as I left.

Foul swell

Wave height: 3.5m
Winds: Strong W
Period: 9.8 seconds
Swell angle: 270 degrees

The ocean is angry today. There's real menace out there as a storm rages beneath blue skies. It's my favourite kind of weather with spray and foam flying across the road and I have to go and check the waves before hitting work, I just can't help it.

Rest Bay is a mess of white water with frothy mountains pounding the rocks but it's certainly not double overhead as reported my Magic Seaweed, the official forecasters for the Ripcurl ASP contest in Portugal...the mind boggles!


Cove was looking a good 4ft today, Shit Pipe was sheltered, around 2ft.


Esp looked around 3ft with a nice right coming off the rocky point to the right.


Coney was the cleanest option around 2ft+ and offshore on the dropping tide but no-one surfing.

We've another big hit coming on Wednesday as a 976 arrives fresh from the Atlantic and the winds are forecast to swing more SSE so we could be in for a treat.

The SPLASHUP (water sports & music event in Porthcawl) is on this Saturday and the forecast currently looks great with better weather and lighter winds so hopefully there will be enough swell for the night surfing contest at the Esp.

Wednesday's chart:

Forecast models show the current low weaken on Friday afternoon after hanging around all week but we start to see the arrival of a new 988 low arriving, so we might get a blip off that on Saturday night.

It should be a good night whatever happens. I'm itching for a surf. Yoga today so I'll see how the old back holds up...

Ouch

In typical fashion I returned from Ireland with a stomach bug which led to a proper stinker of a cold which I followed up with a bad back from carrying fin across the playground monkey bars a few too many times and crouching as I went, to stop his head banging the metal! 

All this, just in time for some proper swell too... a week of small, clean offshore's which I've missed as I've been skulking around the house barely able to put my shoes and socks on, let alone think about surf.

Tuesday seems to have been the best day of the week with Sker delivering solid 3-4ft 'proper waves' as one of the boys put it and 'Probably the best it's been in 6 months' according to Harv!

On the plus side it looks like my BBC walking book is going to go ahead so I'll be a busy boy over the next few months juggling that and a new baby girl in December! It should be out in summer 2013...and will help fund my trip.

Yesterday we finally put down some $ for our Maldives boat trip so the dream is now a reality. Boat deposit paid and flights booked so there's no going back now! Here's our boat - the Hariyana.

Plenty of things going on here. We've got a night surfing comp and surf festival happening on 20 Oct in Porthcawl followed up by the legendary Surfer's Ball the following week so it's going to be a busy fortnight!

I was up in my loft yesterday and discovered a hidden costume gem which I will unleash at the fancy dress ball so it should be good fun! ;0

And finally I've ordered my first custom winter steamer in about 20yrs! from local legend and wetsuit manufacturer Greg Owen @ No Limit Wetsuits here in Porthcawl.

So, look out for my 'tigerman wetsuit' coming to a beach near you in December!

Looks like plenty of surf on the horizon with a couple of big days next week and waves all weekend. I just need my back to make a swift recovery now.

The magnificent but cold, Causeway Coast

Just back from a great 3 day expedition to northern Ireland chasing two half decent low pressure systems as they tracked across the country over to Scotland.

Friday night's alright! Local lad at East Strand:

I arrived on Saturday morning following a 5am start from home to catch a flight over from Bristol. Mark picked me up from Belfast and off we went in search of some swell.

Our biggest problem it would seem was where to go as there were too many options and the forecast was enormous for Monday.

After driving the north coast, calling in at Troggs to see photos from Friday night showing East Strand breaking at a good 8-10t and clean!

We ended up checking one of Mark's quieter spots - PBD. I'd visited before but never seen surf there so was excited to find small, clean waves nudging 3ft as the tide turned.

Mark always thought this spot was a low tide mark but a crew of regulars from Larne, nr Belfast informed us it works best from mid to high. After an hour watching and waiting we got suited up.

A good slap at White Rocks!

 Mark's wetty zip decided to ping off! so was left with a pair of pliers and some engineering to do to save a drive back to Portrush for a new wetty - which he ended up buying anyway!

I paddled out, not quite sure of were to sit but snagged a few lefts before the rest came out.

We surfed for a couple of hours with a great bunch of lads, a big friendly bear of a man called Tommy with a zz top ginger beard and shaved head who had the place wired and his two friends - both of whom dropped in but didn't mind me burning them back later ;)

PBD, small but good fun in the morning:
 The rides weren't long but it was a fun take off and I managed to find some nice rights at what was meant to be a left hand point break! :)

We snuck off to find some much needed food and hot drink - it's bloody freezing over there folks!

A good 3 degrees cooler than Porthcawl and I had some serious shivers going on. Feet like ice blocks, chilled to the core and shivering by the end from a gusty SW wind.

I ended up buying winter boots from Troggs and a 1m thermal fleece lined rashie which saved me for the rest of the trip! Mark bought a stupidly thin new Ripcurl winter suit with no stitching in  a 5/3mm which felt and weighed like a summer suit.

We ventured back to PBD to see if anything was going to happen. The crew we'd surfed with decided to head home unconvinced it would build but we stuck around. Mark snoozed, I read and 2 long boarders turned up and made a right meal of it.

The swell definitely started to build but with 2 guys in who kept missing every decent wave it was hard to tell if it was worth bothering with. By 5pm regular 4ft+ sets were pushing in so we hit it for a evening session.

Stunning views towards Benone Strand
It was soon evident that a new swell had kicked in.

Mark went way out back to catch a few big lefts on his long board and I took my chances in the middle picking of the smaller more regular waves and catching the odd bigger one that refused to break out back in the deeper water.

The rights were good fun, reeling in parallel to the inside reef and rocks but I dared to go as far as I could in the high tide wobble before kicking out in time.


The only left I attempted to catch was a big set wave which just flipped me skyward and sucked me over the falls!

A great little spot and one I'd love to visit again when the swell is bigger as I saw some amazing pics of it this weekend - resembling pipeline.

TBC....

I'm off to kiss some Blarney agus stout and craic

One last ride before Gull jnr arrives in late November....

I've been getting bored with the crap surf we've been having all summer long in Wales so decided action was required. 

Pass secured I message by mate in Derry to see if we could sync up our time off from work with a decent weather chart and within 3 days it had all come together!

I'm hopping on a sleazy jet flight from Bristol to Belfast to hook up with my Oirish surfing crew and find some Donegal gold at the end of a soggy rainbow.

My new board is virtually unused so I'm really looking forward to putting it through its paces in what will be some pretty epic surf - probably the best I've had all year.

A nice onion shaped, 980 is beautifully lined up for the north coast, moving through on Saturday and sitting on top of us right through to Monday so it's going to be absolutely cranking with sw veering w winds meaning offshore winds at certain spots :)

My surf guide MP has lined up 3 x regional classics for me, one of which I've surfed before - a fearsome rivermouth break with grinding left hand barrels that tube for about quarter of a mile! 

It has to be seen to be believed and involves a nice rock jump paddle out int a deep channel with a forboding rip but the exit is fun at low tide walking back across the estuary.

It is completely beserk, more so when you see its location on a map. There is no way on earth that it could ever have surf? The swell has to wrap at some acute angles at least twice just to get anywhere near it - but it does!

Last time I surfed it, I was on a borrowed, delaminated surf tech thrustery thing and felt completely under gunned and twitchy. It's never a nice feeling paddlign out in serious waves on aboard you've never ridden before which feels too short and light for you.

I still had great fun and scored some nice waves but was never particularly relaxed in solid 6-8ft freight train tubes. You could have comfortably driven a mini through some of them - wide open pits of doom.

The other spot on the north coast is somewhere I've visited before but never seen a rideable wave so I'm looking forward to that, it's another left point/reef onto sand.

It's always strange seeing a spot completely flat and trying to imagine the set up, where you sit, where the wave breaks, how long the ride is, is it hollow, where are the rocks?

And finally some ghastly wedge that goes double overhead with another sketchy jump off the end of a pier. All fun and games!

The forecast is riduculous, 5.5m @ 12 seconds on Monday so at least we won't be driving around all day looking for surf. It will be a matter of finding something small enough to ride.

I arrive on Saturday morning at 8:40am so should hopefully be stroking into some serious waves by 10am :)

Welsh European Junior Surfing championships, France

This from Andy Williams (WCSC) who recently went over to France help out and watch his daughter compete:

Just got back from a week at the European Junior Surfing championships with the Welsh junior team, I went over as van driver and bag man, any excuse for a trip eh! 

I’ve no connection with the WSF other than my daughter competing and I’ve known a few of the people involved for years (as do most of us who live and surf in Wales) so this post is totally my own views and nothing to do with the WSF so flame me if you feel the need. 

I've had a few people asking me how the team performed and their final placing, so I had to comment. 

I was gutted when the team finished 10th, the final table just does not show how well the team actually did!

The way the Euro’s is scored penalises teams who don’t have a full team. 

If we had fielded two more bodyboarders (one in U 16,’s one in U18’s) and even if they had finished last in their events, we would have finished 6th. 

Pretty impressive for a country of our size and a very young team, most of whom will be around for a couple more Euro Juniors. 

Take out the bodyboard results totally and we would have finished 5th, right up there with the big four of France, Spain, Portugal and England!

We had the highest placed British surfer (Well done Connor Griffiths - 2nd in the longboard), a 6th place in the Under 16 boys shortboard,(Rhys Barfield, who snapped his favourite board just before his heat started) and a 9th in the U 18’s (Rhys Poulton). 

The other groms backed this up with a bunch of mid field placings. Please don’t take this as a rant about team selection or whatever. 

My only reason for posting this is so that people do realise we do have Welsh kids who are prepared to work hard, take a few beatings in French beachbreaks and can actually surf pretty well. 

I’m bloody proud of the way the kids surfed and behaved, if you are Welsh you should be too! 

If you see one of the team pat them on the back and let them have a wave. 

You can do the same for any of the support staff as well because we had to put up with a van full of pissy wetsuits that even frightened the French customs officials - or it may have been Herbie’s attempt at speaking French!" 

Sounds like an awesome performance from all concerned and just think - if we'd just have had two more bodyboarders in the squad - we would have come 5th in Europe! 

Which is insane considering what a small country we are with intermittent surf! But clearly shows just how good the standard of surfing is now in Wales :)

Hurricane Nadine, will she or won't she?

Not a lot has been happening in the world of gull's surfing.

I've just realised I've not posted in a while. I have been blogging but the new blog app hasn't uploaded them! but never mind, there hasn't been any decent worth blogging about anyway - a handful of okay days at best!

Hurricane Nadine arrives on our shores next week so we should have some big, messy stuff next week but it's better than nothing! I'm off to the Maldives! Whoooopeeeeeeeee

Maldives perfection:
The trip is being finalised currently so we're all getting very excited about surfing in board shorts under palm fringed reefs pulling into crystal clear tubes and watching colourful fish below our boards :)

I even bought some new pairs in preparation, going at half price so seemed rude not to and I hate paying extortionate prices for boardshorts which cost about £5 to make in Indonesia and China and sell for £50+ a pair!

It's the European Fish Fry on this weekend down in north Devon and I was planning to go... but not so sure now as a surf pass for a quick trip to Ireland has emerged so I might take that instead of showing off my quiver and ogling other peoples board's! ;)

The flat spell continues...

Not much to report at the moment other than the fact that the wind and gales have now blown through. A man was rescued off Port Talbot over the weekend after a kayak fishing expedition went wrong!

Not ideal weather to be going out fishing from a canoe in now is it?! But luckily he was picked up alive.

The winds blew strong and hard from the NE mainly making it feel very chilly over thw weekend but pretty much flast as far as the surf was concerned.

The south coast of Cornwall has prob faired slightly better as a low was sitting just off the coast over the weekend.

By the looks of it, that will remain for much of this week but apart from bringing rain to south Wales, there will not be much in the way of surf as that low weakens day by day and heads south west down into Spain.

Annoyingly it's one of those useless lows(for us) which just brings shit weather with it. The last time I checked, Bank Holiday was looking like a wash-out too but the Welsh National Surfing Championships are on @ Fresh west that weekend ( maybe...)

I'm writing a brain bleeding surf quiz for tomorrow night's WCSC meeting at the Salt House so that should be a laugh, from 7.30pm onwards... 5pm - the sun has come out! :)

Spring low like winter

Congrats to greg owen on the birth of his new baby. This was Greg the day before blasting the shit out of the point:

Well we finally had some decent swell this week as a solid winter low reared its ugly head off the north coast of Ireland and delivered some 4ft+ waves.

The wind, strong nw helped squeak a few clean days out on the point but I only managed to get in once at Coney.

Weds night saw clean and rideable faces at Coney - something I've not witnessed all winter! The crowd was thinned out and nice 3-4ft waves came through. The water was warm enough with a hood and I bumped into sven, math, tris, phil and afew others out back.
The point was going off early about 4.30PM but I couldn't get down there in time to enjoy it but the pics from claire Beach look nice on Facebook.

The weekend is lining up nicely with more nw winds and swell so fingers crossed I can score some early. Enjoyo!

Cold snap coming

Just as all the birdies settle down to their nest making and the vegetables start poking up through the soil, a COLD SNAP suddenly rears its ugly head. First the fuel shortages caused by idiots panic buying and now this! ;)

I'd only just had my first BBQ of the season too..

The sun is taking a break and a low is on its way down from the north bringing chilly NE winds so we're going to have some biterly cold weather for a couple of days before it gets back to normal.

There's talk of a small swell blip today, not checked the cam yet so will swing by the beach in about an hour and check. Easter weekend isn't looking like such a wash out now and Sunday looks pretty damn good for waves currently so fingers crossed that lasts!

I've got my surfboard bike rack sorted at last after much hassle as the shop gave me the wrong fixtures which left me with alot of head scratching at first but it's now assembled and ready to go once this weather warms up and the Wales Coast Path gets finished!

And finally, this weekeend I begun dabbling in driftwood art for my garden(it just goes to shows what a flat spell can do to a man).

Apparently they make it looks like someone has been buried in my front garden! But I'm quite happy with my proto-types and will continue making things, so if anyone fancies buying some - let me know ;)!

Heat waves

Wind: light SE, offshore
Wave Period: 12-13 seconds
Wave height: 0.9m, 3ft at the beach
Tides: High at 9.8m around 6.50am

It's been a great start to spring 2012 with a nice low pressure sitting out in the Atlantic and a blocking high over the UK meaning offshore winds and plenty of small, clean swell every day! Even the sun is shinging and we have highs of 18 degrees all weekend :)

I had an insanely perfect surf after work on Weds evening. 3-4ft reef with only 3 surfers in and good vibes. I had some lovely waves, nice, steep, fast and hollow take offs and my board is flying with the new 3 fin set up I'm trying out.

The lefts were lining up perfectly over the reef with a slower section followed by a racing hollow slab on the inside to make or break you. I went right on a few kamikaze waves and only bounced off the bottom once - great fun though and not too dangerous with a big tide over the reef :)

The only thing messing things up slightly are the tides as they've been huge so earl surfs have been tricky!

More clean waves today so an after work surf is definitely on the cards followed by some cold ale.

The weekend looks insane and then there's next week to look forward too and the clocks go forward today so we can all enjoy some 5am dawn patrols shortly.

Summer is coming

Not much to report on the surfing front really other than a few small clean days here and there.

Had a good trip to Fuerteventura a few weeks ago but the waves weren't what I'd hoped for but we had a fun time, saw some bands, drank Desperado and Tequila and met some cool people along the way.

The wind was NE most days so cross on shore for the northern track but we surfed a number of spots and finally scored some clean surf on our penultimate day at the bubble and some surrounding reefs. The crowd was on it as clean and powerful 6-8ft sets boomed through. Spongers were controlling the lefts and getting barrelled left right and centre and the local crew were all over the rights.

Rattz and I had been surfing the gulls nest further down with mixed results. He'd opted for lefts and I'd stayed on the rights and scored a few okay rides but it soon switched off.

We paddled over to a reef near the bubble and after a few futile atempts at riding small stuff I'd had enough - this wasn't I came to Feuret for so I jostled onto the peak and managed to snag 3 waves from a pack containing some shit hot surfers.

My first was a very late effort as I'd come so close to getting waves but each time someone was on it or it closed out.

I finally got a decent ride when a surfer pulled back last minute so I threw myself over the ledge and just about hung on - tippy toes!

Bottom turned, cutback - can't really remember as it all happened so fast but the important thing was that I made the drop!

I paddled back to the channel and found rattz grinning who shouted over "Casual Barlow!" which made me chuckle as it was anything but casual in my head! more like survival ;)

The wind picked up and the swell got meaner with some serious 10ft bombs coming through and clattering the few guys left out there.

Friday night we went kind of large and as lucj would have it - the swell finally arrived! The whole coast lit up, Lobos was firing and the Harbour finally had a wave. Even the channel between shooting galleries and town had a barrlling wave!

Rattz, aran and I paddled out, some of us still a bit drunk and attempted to surf clean, fast left handers around 4-6ft+

My first few were fine and ratter scored a lovely long left but after that things went downhill. I had a nice high speed train wreck of a wipeout, aran got scraped along the reef on his back and I began to lose my mojo.

I don't think the hangover or subsequent ear infection helped as my head was booming but ratter stepped up and was the surfer of the session - about bloody time! ;0

Since then I've surfed 4 times but not had anything over 3ft really but we've had some nice evening sessions and the clocks go forward in a weeks time :)

Cold but fun

Very light SE wind
Dropping tide from high at 7.30am
3ft+ clean waves
1m on the wave buoy @ 13.2 seconds, 264 degrees

Apologies I'll stop mentioning the cold soon - once it gets bloody warm again!

More snow on the way apparently for SE Wales but at least the windscreen was ice free today until...I put my wipers on accidentally and instantly lost all my driving vision on the way to the beach!

I'd arranged to meet Aran who'd slept in as usual so took my time, got changed at home and drove down to sker. Aran eventually arrived looking like he was more asleep than awake so I walked on down and paddled out into an almost empty lineup.

Clean 3ft+ waves were breaking with some lovely lefts coming through fairly regularly but I opted for a middle bank with rights as it seemed more comfortable with my knee.

Took me a while to get into a decent wave as the first few lefts I had were fast but I was in a bit of pain with my leg so couldn't do much. A little frustrating tbh as I was gagging to whack some lips and go late on some but had to play it safe and be sensible.

Eventually I snagged a nice long, shoulder high, smooth right hander and managed a few top turns before kicking out before the pebble bank :)

Chris joined us and caught some lovely long rights while aran just sat there feeling dizzy with cold! It was freezing though, below 7 degs now and at times my chest felt like there was no neoprene on it at all. It was only after a shockingly cold flush that my body started producing some real heat and I warmed up!

A couple more paddled out but there were plenty of waves as the tide dropped back. I snagged a nice right on my last wave, nudging 4ft with a late take off.

I had a comedy wobble at the bottom, nearly losing it completely but hung on and rode some face passing some grinning surfers who'd witnessed my unorthodox take off technique.

I rode that one in and was glad to be back on dry land with no more damage to my tendon (touch wood).

Had a quick chat with Aran in the car park before leaving, who told me he 'couldn't surf in the cold any more and felt dizzy and sick in the head!'
Looks like he's going to become a summer surfer. Old age has finally caught up with him ;)

Stayed in my suit for the drive home and got changed under a steaming hot shower - the joys of living locally :)

9 days till Fuerteventura not that I'm counting...

A chilly start to the day

I'm nursing a tendon injury below the knee currently so not been surfing much in the last month. I had a dip @ Freshwest 2 weeks ago but only in 2ft weak, surf - off F.point and wasn't particularly comfortable turning or attempting manoeuvres so I've been hitting the pool instead x 3 times a week to keep surf fit.

Off to Fuerteventura on 18 Feb for a week. It's been 4 years since my last visit so I'm stoked to be going back and pray that my beloved Isla de Lobos is working at least once during our trip and that my knee is a bit better by then...

The WCSC have asked local surfers to keep a record of surf and rough numbers in the water in order to use as data for the Atlantic Array windfarm modelling which we can feed into. SAS will then check their computer models independently to see if the data is accurate and we hope to be able to build up a picture of surf conditions and possible outcomes if the wind farm goes ahead.

There's been a small, clean swell the last few days and yesterday we had an Hawaiian style 19 second wave period!

The swell angle has been a little off so we've only been getting 2-3ft and this morning is similar only 2ft. Hardly a breath of wind out there and what there is, is offshore but it's damn cold, barely nudging 2 degrees all day today! And more talk of snow on the way...

Today's swell @ 8am:


1.m + dropping with the tide
Swell angle 264 degs
HT: Big tides, 10m at 6:30am
Wind: Very light SE
At the beach: Clean 2ft and plenty of lines but not much power or shape

Chilly con carni

By 'eck it was a chilly one this morning but well worth a dip. Lightish NE wind, 13 sec wave period and 1.3m of swell meant clean 3ft+ on the beach @ Rest Bay today.

I should've got changed into my wetty @ home today but had been too organised last night and already put my stuff into the van. With freezing temps and a frost on the car, my suit was refrigerated this morning and I had numb hands before I'd managed to get my mitts on.

Not many in and those that were, were well spread out so I had the pick of the set waves on a nice peak down near the golf course today.

Had a few nice waves though and the half moon looked stunning as I walked down along the beach only to be replaced by a blinding sunrise.

Little video from 'porthcawlsurf' showing small peaks at the lifeguard station end:



Icy water flooded into my old leaky back panel as I paddled out and I'm beginning to wonder how long this old suit can last now as water temps plunge to 8C and we've got at least another 2 or 3 degrees to go yet! :(

It wasn't classic but had a couple of nice long rights and I caught around 10 waves. I think the Firewire is going to go now and I'll dig out the bonzer for the rest of the winter.