Yesterday's Waves

There were some nice, big, waves racing in yesterday. I'm sure some looked about 7ft. Some pretty clean faces and some churning whitewater. However, I didn't go out. After a tiring surf the evening before, as the swell built by the minute, and with the forecast for plenty of surf over the coming week I sat and watched for a while instead. I know I'm not good enough for waves this size yet. Better to sit back and let the decent surfers get on with it (and you can learn a lot about timing and positioning by watching).

There were plenty of examples of how to and also how not to being exhibited! As well as exhilarating cutbacks and bottom turns being performed some surfers were just jumping in and wasting loads of energy by heading out into the worst areas of whitewater (instead of using the channels,) catching closing out waves and generally not being Dane Reynolds. That said, I now know how difficult surfing is so there were some good surfers out there - just to be able to ride those waves at all - (must watch less surfing DVDs and more real life!). Skill level is not really the point anyway: there was a lot of fun and drama being had in those beautiful waves. If I had had the time I would have liked to take a drive further afield to see what was going on on some of the other breaks along the coast: I could sniff the stoke in the air like there was an enormous North Devon beach barbeque going on...