Size Matters

Haven't really been able to take advantage of this recent swell through being fairly busy in work, even weekends are hectic with my life-saving exam coming up next week and the start of the Christmas party season.

Made it up to Portrush yesterday afternoon, there were a lot of surfers in at East Strand but the size was dropping with the falling tide and it seemed that Whiterocks still had decent size and it was also super-clean.

Not too many surfers out at Whiterocks but the huge numbers of kayakers had probably put people off. By the time I got there the paddlers had moved down the beach and the main breaks were clear.

The big right at the East end of the beach looked to be holding sets of 7-8 ft and just looked too gnarly for me, or anyone else but the smaller breaks were very fast and hollow and probably measured 4-5 ft on the regular sets.

The combination of the size, steep faces and a very heavy wave made for some hairy drops and very fast rides where it was difficult to control the board. I could have opted for an easier time at East Strand but I thought I should tackle the bigger stuff, even if it meant more wipeouts.

Steadily more surfers arrived, mostly short-boarders. The body-boarders were out in force, the North Coast has a fairly big crew of very talented spongers but sometimes I think they have a worse attitude than the short-boarders. I had to pull off a wave to avoid taking the head off one yesterday and all I got for my trouble was a mouthful of abuse. I heard another bodyboarder call a young surfer off a wave with a very aggressive "Don't you even f&$kin' think about it!" while he was mid-take-off.

I suppose it's something to do with the increased danger levels out there when it gets big but there always seems to be an increase in tensions.

b.