Beautiful Woolacombe Evening Surf

I strapped up my bad knee and risked a surf on Thursday evening and it was beautiful.

There weren't too many of us out on a sunny, calm evening at Woolacombe. The sun was dipping orange, the birds scooting across the water and clean 1-2 ft waves slipping towards the shore. This was a surf that drummed home the fact that the best conditions for a new surfer are clean small waves. I have never experienced an easier surf. Easy paddling, easy waves. Pure pleasure all evening. My concerns were - would I have forgotten everything after three weeks enforced absence from the waves? Would I just twist my knee again? (I knew it was a bit early but this was the last remnants of swell for a while.) Well the knee held up fine - thanks to a neoprene knee support which did its job well. And regarding my first concern? Well: I surfed more in this session than in all my other surfs put together. Sliding along wave after wave. Paddling back out towards the sun. Chatting with the odd amicable surfer.

For the first time I felt like I had some consistency, some ability and knowledge, some comfort, some levity, sliding, trimming - almost like a surfer at last. This was indesputably a landmark day for me. On one of my first surfs CP said to me that one day I'd have a surfing epiphany: a day when I felt like I'd grasped the basics of surfing, knew what I was doing - things would fall into place. Well this was that day. So now, time to move on: bring on more speed, the bottom turns and cutbacks, the fade take offs and the noseriding...