It has to be said that January and Feb so far this year is making up for a poor Autumn. This weekend gone was without doubt one that will go down in the annals (careful with the spelling!!) of history.
It all kicked off on Friday morning when we met up at about 8.30 and Hutch, Martyn and myself rigged up the 4.7's and went on on the beach. There was a 4-6ft swell pushing in and we sailed up to t'others. We managed to score a few sweet waves on the reef with Martyn Ogier having one particularly sweet OTL, Hutchy nailing a 20ft+ backie and I even managed a few nice aeriels before dinging my board on the reef.
Saturday was pretty much a repeat of Friday but the swell picked up to 6ft and there was not a surfer in sight. Also the numbers were right up there with about 15 people out (not bad for mid-winter). There wasn't much jumping to be had but the waveriding was COP and it wasn't long before there were plenty of lips being shredded. Amazingly there was limited kit damage except for poor Steve Mellors who was nailed big big time on the reef. He had to ditch his kit and make his own way in. The kit was left high and dry on the reef in bits!!
Sunday saw an even bigger swell with some mast high grunters pushing through. The winds were alot lighter so I went out on my 5.8 Superfreak, which is perfect in light gross off conditions. Simon Harty and I shared a wave the size of two storey house before I headed out about a mile to Le Perron reef. When you are that far out in the ocean swells it's quite intimidating as you can;t see anything when you are in the troughs, and with a 9.0m tide there was a lot of water moving around. Le Perron either just crumbles slowly but if the wave peaks and jacks up it'll break top to bottom even at well over mast high, and as it's a reef you can be a shoulder soldier and stay safe if you want. I had one particular wave that broke heavily and I could feel the air vibrating through the sail.
Finally Monday Jason C and I scored a light wind drift and drop session with some nice waves to be had despite the rain. The swells were holding up nicely at low tide with the bigger ones starting to jack on the sand bar. After 4 days of COP I really felt like I was getting my wave riding together and scored some proper aerials, landing fully out in front on the flats on one of them - it's just a shame that we don't get it all the time because we know that by next time we go sailing we'll be so rusty we'll have to start all over again!
Session count this year:
Boards used:
81l Starboard Quad - 8
87l Naish GW - 4
Sails Used:
3.7 Hotsails Superfreak - 0
4.2 Hotsails Smack - 1
4.7 Hotsails Smack - 2
5.3 Hotsails Smack - 7
5.8 Hotsails Superfrea - 1
6.3 Hotsails Superfreak - 1
Total - 12
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