Late yesterday afternoon I headed down to check the surf at The Spot. It was sunny, offshore and looked great, but no one was out… When there’s no one out at The Spot you have to ask ‘why?’ Because there’s never no one out… Looks good though doesn’t it?…

The French guy who has been camping in the carpark for the last two weeks was sitting by his van and we got chatting. Apparently the ultra low tide meant the water was barely covering the reef and there wasn’t much point in paddling out. But I went home and checked the tides, to see that high tide was 10.30 today and the swell was on the up.

Now to be honest, the idea of going surfing is always much more appealing than the reality of getting into cold water on an icy winter day. And yet I’ve been doing it for long enough now to know that if you don’t go you regret it later.

So at 10.00 I flipped the laptop lid down and strolled out the door with somewhat half-hearted intent. It was a bit more than cold this morning and and the breeze had kicked up. If I could only surf without freezing my butt off… Exmouth in 4 weeks… Now that will be the go…

I got to the carpark to see 5 guys in the water and some lovely strong sets pushing thru.  Better than I thought it would be – less crew than I expected too… It was certainly cold, but with a day off and nothing in particular to do this was looking like a nice way to spend a couple of hours. ‘Nails’ (image above) looked great and had on one on it so I thought I’d paddle out there.

After 10 minutes at Nails I paddled over to join the crew at the main break. And straight away latched onto a good sized set wave, and then another… I’d decided to take ‘big Mal’ (my 8′ 8″ old faithful mal) out for a ride today and it handled it well.

I dunno what you do to ‘bring yourself alive’, but for me there is nothing quite like an uncrowded morning in good surf. I think it is simply the feeling of speed as you tear down a wave. I’m close to 50 now, and every time I get held down I realise I have the lung capacity of a chipmunk, but when I get moving on a wave I feel 19 again…

And I like that… while it lasts.