Day seven and the final day of my week long experiment whereby I went in the sea every day to see if I could replicate that surf trip feeling at home. The final surf yesterday occured in the Newquay Bay with my mate Jacko; head high and a bit more, strong offshore winds, feeling strangely warm. The GoPro wasn’t fully charged so we only managed to catch a few snaps but at least the session was documented.
The reasoning is that when you’re on a surf trip, you just get up and go in the sea no matter what because you’re aware that if you don’t, you’ll soon be back at home and wishing you made the most of it. By going in the sea everyday you have a great time and get lots more waves than you would do by not going in every day. Perfectly obvious really! So why not try it at home?
A suspicious looking pair of miscreants
During the week, I experienced various conditions and weather from clean, two foot surf with frost on the beach and blue skies above, to mild, howling wind with double overhead surf, through to punchy, clean (even if they were closing out) offshore surf. Some days the only people in the water were me and the friend I jumped in with, other days I was sharing with fifty or so others.
Fitness wise, I certainly notice an improvement, I seem to have more energy at all times of the day and am sleeping better. Surfing / kiting skills wise, well I only got a couple of kite sessions in but the surfing certainly feels a lot sharper and I’m catching more waves per session than I used to. It’s only been a week, but the focus clearly has a positive effect.
Sunday cruising
Looking at the forecast for this week ahead, it looks as though we’re in for a real treat. Loads of waves and wind coming, so I think I’ll continue going each day whilst things are good. I probably won’t be taking the GoPro out each day though, it’s nice to take it to record the odd session but you do spend a fair amount of time fiddling about with it and that does eat into your wave count.
Just like Zoolander, Jacko can go left
Considering this is usually a fairly dull time of the year where you’re sort of just waiting for it to get a bit warmer and brighter, the past week has been a real hoot and by going outside and excercising each day, it’s staved off that winter feeling and now it doesn’t feel like winter at all. Doing this project has put me in a mind to try another one, so I think for the rest of February I will wake up at exactly civil twighlight* every morning. walk down to the beach and take a photo. I’ll post the gallery up here once it’s done.
*Civil twighlight in tomorrow morning is 07:10, sunrise is 07:43.
