All Hail the RRRapido...27/10/2012

I was chomping at the bit. All night I was jumpy, waiting impatiently for the clock to hit 8 and release me to get changed and hit the beach. In fact, I was intending to leave early if at all possible but let down by a shift partner who didn't arrive and a replacement who was late in I had to leave on time. It had been cold when walking in that night, the northerly blowing right through me and it was cold now, too. I didn't go the direct way though, heading instead towards the beach to walk the promenade and cut back home. The sea was up, ten minutes off high water, and the spray was shooting up in the air as it hit the concrete at the north end of South Beach. It was looking promising as I approached. I walked south, my head cocked to the left as I stared at the water. Good swells, large; larger than yesterday. Waves were coming in constantly, mostly in the 6-8ft range, with not a lot of time between them though it was cleaner than yesterday. I was getting excited now! This was looking the best it had been in the year I'd owned my RRRapido! I picked up my pace, passed the watching boardies trying to decide what to do and got home with no further delay. No-one was up so I squeezed into my Psycho III wetsuit, bought from Shore Watersports especially for days like this, popped my Kolas on (to avoid waking my wife rummaging for my wetsuit boots) and went and said hello to my littlest, reading quietly in bed, and suggested she might want to come down later and watch the surfers. Out the back I went, picked up my RRRapido and the double torque Mystik and wandered up the alleyway to the beach, turning to look at the rainbow behind me. The sun was still climbing, dead ahead, as I approached the front. Boardies were milling around everywhere, only two suited up as yet, and I attached the ATC9K to the bow before descending to the sand. One boardie was on his way out, the first, and another followed me, leapfrogging ahead as I adjusted my thigh straps. The sea was pounding and I just couldn't see any gaps; launching was going to be interesting to say the least. Best I just suck it and see then! I entered the foam and, where I'd been knee deep the morning before I was now in up to my chest - the north-easterly swells had scoured so much of the beach away in the preceding twenty-four hours it was untrue. Likewise, the sand shipped in over the last few weeks was mostly gone too. I clambered on and started to paddle without time to put the thigh straps on, the paddle leash getting in the way (fitted due to the anticipated congestion this morning and the knowledge that I'd be in the water a fair bit). I got fifty yards, over the first couple of waves and then, in a wall of foam, got flipped backwards. Strike One! I washed up on the beach and headed back out...got fifty yards again and then got hit by more foam. Strike Two! Starting to feel silly now...try again...fifty yards, wall of water, Strike Three! Around Strike ten or twelve I decided to head up the beach away from the groyne and try and take the rip in the centre of the beach out. I made a couple of attempts here and, like the flotsam that I was, wandered back onto the promenade to try and locate somewhere I could get in...it didn't look any better before the pier. I got my breath back and decided to try along the edge of the groyne again. It just wasn't possible! The waves were relentless, no more than 5 or 6 seconds apart and no small sets. Time and again I got trashed, unable to duck dive like the boardies and without enough speed to combat the onrushing water and with the camera being ripped off the mount again, no longer attachable, I gave up and decided I had no option but to walk. I'd provided good entertainment for at least three-quarters of an hour after all...and there was no way I was going home until I'd got out back and ridden at least one wave! A quarter of a mile later and I was stood by the lifeguard post, the base of which was getting hammered by swirling water. Deflected further southwards by the harbour, the waves rolling in were a bit lower and a bit less powerful. I waited for the best moment and went for it, paddling out easily and heading south with the wind behind me, trying to pick up anything that looked rideable from where I was...I got assistance from a few but nothing that lasted and after another five minutes I approached the break. I stayed offshore from the boardies by around fifty yards and a similar distance southwards. There was no way I wanted to run anyone over and I wasn't convinced I’d be staying upright all that much! Besides, when I got my wave I wanted a clear run - it took long enough to get out here and I wasn't going to do it again! They weren't quite peaking where I was so I waited and waited, trying here and there but just running for a bit before being overtaken...and then...and then...eight foot up from the trough , running right along the full length of the groyne and beyond, stretching back a way from the rapidly-moving face came this wall of water, a huge wall of water, still growing, sucking up more from the trough ahead and starting to become more vertical as I ran ahead and it started to catch up...I could feel it picking me up and, moving with it the lip started to curl over beneath me...I was on top of the wave, right on the crest and I was stuck, I couldn't get onto the face with the wave moving so fast and then there was no bloody chance I'd even try as it disappeared beneath me, my arse on the wave and my feet overhanging the lip as I stared down to the bottom of the trough, seemingly a hundred feet below as I skidded around on the top and dropped off, paddling hard to clear the following wave and regain a position to take-off from. It was exhilarating, that's for sure. It reminded me of a time a couple of years before when the wave I was surfing reared up just before shore and looked like depositing me in a massive, bone-crunching dump before crumbling beneath and giving me a soft landing on foam...but I didn't think I'd have done any more than get battered and half-drowned from this one and I'd already had a gob-full of North Sea during the launches! I tried for a few more, being overtaken again after a couple of seconds and then the hail started. It had been dark for a while, and I mean dark, and as the squall passed through the hail hammered down painfully on my freshly-clippered head and the backs of my hands. It made one hell of a racket and stung as it hit. Some summer this is!!! I took another big wall, sat on top again as it left me hanging and moved on; it just wasn't happening for me today. I waited a bit longer for a wave, had a small run but hooked back over when it started to close out and then got hit by another, longer and harder hailstorm. This was getting silly now. Then, finally, one started to shape up nicely and I ran ahead of it, picking it up and shooting down, hooking into a bottom turn and running along the face; this was the one I’d waited for since getting out, the one that'd take me back into the beach, honour sort of semi-restored...I ran with it and then, coming out ahead I see a boardie...shit! No avoiding him in this track, no option but to pull off the wave. A pity but that's life and I was stuck where I was, getting back out was going to be doubtful so I did the next best thing and caught the following wave, scooting past and round the surfer and ending in a sideways slide onto the beach. I picked up the RRRapido and, after stopping to chat for a few minutes, headed home for a coffee to wake myself up and get some warmth back into my wet, shivering, battered arse!