Thursday 17 December 2009

Thou by the Indian Ganges side

shouldst rubies find.
I by the tide of Humber will complain.

And mostly I'll complain about the weather. It's vile.
It's redefining vile.

For reasons I can't quite explain, I left lovely Yorkshire this morning (again) despite the promise of big, clean, off-shore waves over the weekend, and drove down to Norfolk, which promises a howling, blown-out mess until Sunday. And from Monday, unsurfable mush. Ever the optimist, I'm hoping there might be a slim window of opportunity between the two, and I can grab a quick surf then flee the fickle, freezing fingers of the North Sea in time for Christmas.

The good news: snow is unlikely to settle here tonight.
The bad news: only because the wind howling off the sea is too strong.

Before I left Scarborough, I managed a couple more sessions. I met up with Morgan again and we surfed a big, fat wave in Scarborough North Bay on Wednesday. It was a bit frustrating - lots of water, but it was too fat and not really standing up. Caught a few ok waves, but there was a lot of paddling through endless white water.
We went to have a look at Cayton Bay. It looked ok, but not quite worth getting into a cold wet wetsuit for, so we decided against it. It's so much easier to make these difficult decisions by committee.
This is Morgan illustrating a) Cayton Bay b) the low quality weather and c) the low quality waves.

Morgan went home to nurse his cold, and I went into the surf shop where Josh, the surf-youth on duty, was sufficiently enthusiastic about surfing in general and surfing in Yorkshire in particular to make me rethink. I went back to have another look. It looked a bit better (or I was a bit warmer after being in the surf shop) so I jogged off through the drizzle to get changed. (Sorry, Morgan!)

It was OK, though not a patch on Monday and by the end the wind had started blowing on shore, which was not ideal. Plus I stumbled upon the rip just as my shoulders realised that two sessions in the same day in cold water is not written into their contract. I was happy to drag myself up the sand as the light started to fade.

Today I made my way South. Filey was blown out. Bridlington was blown out. How about Skegness? Everyone had told me it was a dump, but I decided to take a look anyway. It was blown out. And a dump. I suspect I'll never go there again. Here is the only nice view of a very nasty town.
After that Lincolnshire was lovely.

And then I reached Norfolk and the weather kicked in. It's still vile.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jono,

Sorry - still can't find the glossary. "Stumbled upon the rip"?

Please insert a link.

M

80waves said...

"Accidentally found myself being swept out to sea rather rapidly on an inconvenient current"

But full marks for trying.

Jono