post 8: cornwall

Date: 9/5/09
Location: car and train in the english countryside

I've decided to make things easy on myself because my fat fingers struggle on these tiny keys. So I will be listing things that sum up our semi-week in polzeath, a summer town on the atlantic coast in cornwall, followed by one short story from the trip.

Keywords:
English countryside
Stonehenge
Iconic airliner trailer
Hurricane swell
Rainstorm
Laser tag
Cornish pastie
Mega shark vs giant octopus
Onshore winds

Key people:
Me
Christian
Ed
George
Octavia
Skatie

Supporting people:
Mark and erin

Story:
Late august in cornwall felt like a crappy day in october in chicago, only greener. Our first full day in the trailer was the only day of favorable winds for surfing. Light offshore/sideshore wind all day. The waves seemed to build a little as the day went on. We surfed from around 830 to 1030am and went in to eat and i got one wonderful overhead wave.   Around noon the rain really picked up and all we could think about was how miserable it would be to get into our wet cold wetsuits. I was laying on a bed undercovers in the van when everyone made the push to get suited up.  And reluctantly i got suited up  

So we got our suits on and made the 3 min walk from the trailer park, across the street, to the beach. After my suit was on all my complaints were over and I was just excited to surf.

The paddle out through the shore was always grueling, on this particular session only the boys made it out back, partially because Skatie and Tia were given some safety advice by a surfer coming out of the water so they didn't paddle out where we (ed christian greg and I) did.

When I finally made it through the waves I was pretty exhausted so I just sat on my board and watched the sets come through.  

The waves at polzeath are a beach break with about 3 or 4 decent peaks out back when it was big.  The waves we rode were gifts sent to us from hurricane bill. The biggest swells were measured at around 10 feet with an 11 second swell period. The biggest faces we estimated at about 15 feet.  Very powerful.  

After resting my arms and watching a few sets I decided it was time to paddle into some peaks. In my limited surfing experience I would say the biggest waves I surfed before this had faces that were no more than 6 feet tall. So this was a big jump in size and I was nervous to the point that, if I had waited any longer to take a wave, I could have easily talked myself out of it.

My first few waves we a combination of humbling and disappointing. Lots of thrashings and underwater tumbling, lots of near missed drops.   Over the course of the 2.5 hour session the weather switched between a steady rain and a torrential downpour making it difficult to see the incoming set waves, which had a tendency to begin crumbling about 50 yards in front of you meaning you had to be on your toes.  

Finally i got a good peak and good position I was swallowed up by whitewater for a moment on as a got to my feet and as i came down the face.  Afterwards Ed and George said the wave face was 3 times as tall I was, not sure if that is true, but if so it would be a wave a good 8 feet bigger than anything I was used to.  I do know that i was scarred shitless on my feet and just as the water cleared from my eyes I saw some guy with a red board right in my line.   So i jumped off my board before the drop was done and tried to swim under the wave.  I basically tumbled and twisted for a few moments before breaking the surface behind the wave.  I had survived and not done any damage to my board or the man and his board in front of me.  But i did wish that i had continued my ride.  Later in the session the sun managed to peak through the clouds and the rain fell to a drizzle, a very beautiful moment in time that helped relax my nerves a little.

Over the next few days the onshore winds howled making the waves choppy, and the water was churned up with sand and seaweed giving it an nice brown color reminiscent of a big northwest day in the fall or spring at home at cliffs.   I got some great rides, not so fearful as I was when i first made those first few drops, but certainly with a sense of respect for the power of waves that size.

On to Finland to see Annina tomorrow!

TTFN