I Feel Like I've Joined a Club - A Logging Club...

I am still borrowing a nice Gulf Stream log. After a few tries on it the forecast was finally for some clean 2-3ft fun so I got up on only my second 'dawn patrol' at 5.30am and was down at Saunton for 6am. My days with this board are numbered so I had to get to Saunton on the right kind of a day: to push the board out into its 'natural habitat'.

After paddling into some crowded line-ups this half-term and then staring, painfully, into a setting sun trying to see the waves coming this was fantastic: clean 2-4ft waves, a handful of surfers, a misty morning light and the vital ingredient: a 9'4 log.

I had possibly my best surf ever. Loads of waves, long rides and one particularly long ride with both feet in the nose area trimming along a great wave - maneuvered around a paddling out surfer (who gave me that stoke-sharing grin) and on, and on...

That day I got it completely - the longboard thing. I felt like I'd joined a club. Again I got a portion of a 'bastardised' Smiths track (Bigmouth) caught in my head as I paddled:

And now I know how Miki Dora felt

Now I know how Miki Dora felt, oh

As his toes cross-stepped to the nose

And his longboard started to melt

Oh ...

Logging, la ... logging, la ...

Logging strikes again...

Once it's moving the longboard comes alive in a way you can't imagine while you're lugging the monstrous amount of foam and resin down the beach. I was worried as I'd had my doubts. My confession: I took my Diplock flyer out the other day because it was easier to throw in the car and I thought that perhaps I was leaning towards shortness and would, though touching on it, not quite be won over by logging. Now I have well and truly seen the light. There was not one moment out there at Saunton where I had a pang of desire for a bit of progressive-fishery. Yep - on bigger days, perhaps. But that day the 9'4 traditional was perfect!

This dawn surf made me feel in a new aesthetic surfy place. Deeper into surfing... or is surfing getting deeper into me?