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Basher
Grommet 
Member #: 165 Posts 5
Registered: 9-3-2003 Member Is Offline Mood:
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| posted on 28-7-2003 at 11:40 |
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Big Wave day for Brighton
Big Waves in Brighton
(Friday July 25th)
I suppose I should have known something was
gonna happen today when I couldn't get the front
door open this morning. The forecast was for 4 to
5 increasing 6 for a time. What we got in Brighton
was force 7 and the best waves seen for many a
year.
I was put off by the rain but still managed to head
down to the Basher Beach Hut at lunchtime – just
to take a look. The wind took out my umbrella as I
reached the seafront and the sea was a total
white-out – with the onshore, near south-easterly
wind shredding the flags off the Palace Pier poles.
Pier staff came out and battled to take them down – which was rather annoying when you use them as indicators.
It kinda looked like I wasn't gonna risk it anyway – I just hate port tack when it's big.
By 3.30 however the rain cleared as the tide
bottomed out and the wind swung SW. Far from
dropping, the wind was still honking – only now it
was pushing up the faces of the established
easterly swell.
You just can't walk away from waves like that, but
could I get off the beach today? Massive shorebreak, no wind on the inside and yet loads out the back. And would the wind drop?.
I rigged a 5m, fully downhauled. I had to go to the toilet twice.
The glorious sunshine had brought out the tourists who were eager to see this tempestuous sea in all its anger. Several watched me rig
and one actually asked if I was mad. Little did he know I was asking myself the same thing. A friend later said I was talking
gibberish. What I actually muttered was only for my own ears; "Climb every mountain. Follow your dreams..."
The first launch wasn't too bad (Yes, there's
more...) but I have never been so frightened. It was about 4pm and the wind had not long changed direction and the wave faces were
HUGE. I crawled over one, then another and then bashed through a whole wall of white water. Couldn't make it past the pier so I had to
put in an early gybe which sort of went OK, even though my sailwas about a metre too big. Just west of the Palace Pier however you get
the biggest of waves and I was soon on one I didn't know how to get off. The exit route was decided for me halfway back in as this
mast-high monster simply closed out over me. Rinse, cheese roll under water, cough splutter splutter, gasp for air, nose streaming,
bogeys down the wetsuit, oh bugger the outhaul has gone. Oh bugger there's another wave.
And suddenly I'm back on the beach standing next to some messed-up kit. Remarkably the damage is more psychological than physical. A
new bit of rope fixes the outhaul. Those dings can wait.And it's back out again, launching further up the beach this time.
People do a funny thing when there are waves
crashing on a beach. They stand next to the
water's edge in a place where they're guaranteed
to get wet. Today there's a courting Indian couple
actually standing in the water. He has his trousers rolled up and holds her hand while she's up to her waist in water, wearing a sari.
Is she having a pee? Is this some love scene from a
Bollywood movie? Either way, they're in my way so I move further up the beach. And I'm standing
waiting for a gap in the shorbreak when another
Indian bloke – the brother in-law I think – stands
right next to me with his trousers rolled up too. (Is this an Asian thing?) All he says is; "Bloody windy, mate..." His accent is
charmingly half Calcutta, half South Croydon.
How can you explain to a stranger that you're
looking for nirvana but that you've got a nasty smell in your wetsuit, and that your rig is about to whip his head off any minute? I
think he thought I was one of those pay-for-a-twitch robotic statues, because I didn't move for about 20 minutes waiting for a gap in
the waves.
I make it through though, and, after ten minutes out the back, I get my confidence back.
There is no chop today, just undulating hills with a penthouse view, and valleys so deep you could
build a house in them. From 4pm until 5pm I'd say
they were near mast high out the back but
unfortunately no-one else made it off the beach to bear witness. But perhaps you can see that the sea is an olive green now.
Occasionally there are snowy shelves of white water. Sometimes the two combine to create a rolling carpet, patchworked like the skin
from a Fresian cow.
Moo Moo. Silly Cow! I am on such a high! Why am I shouting, when there's no-one to hear?
Best of all you can steer a course which seems to
take you constantly downhill which means that
going offwind or sailing upwind is no problem.
This is Hookipa, on holiday in Brighton.
The wind is almost crosshore in these waves and
you can ride them or rip them. Soon I know what is meant by a long and slow bottom turn. I learn to find the bowl, and I can plane back
up to the crest, staying sheeted in on board speed alone. At the last minute you can snap it off the lip or off the white water. And if
you pick the wave right you can then feel the crest curving over your shoulder as your run from the near tube.
Such riding is addictive – and dangerous. One
time soon I go into free fall and I get rinsed bigtime again. This time I just can't hold onto the kit and I surface to see it heading
for the trashing
shorebreak, already three waves away from me. I
swim like mad but there's no way I'm gonna catch
the board and rig and there's another big set
coming. I'm opposite the seafront office and I yell
and wave at the lifeguard stationed there. She
looks up to see me in the water and waving but
carries on talking to her friend. This girl is the one
lifeguard on Brighton beach who is not a surfer.
Trained for the flat water of the municipal pool,
she's no idea what's going on. The red flag's up
anyway.
My kit gets rolled 3 times before it's washed up the beach and luckily some bloke with a dog goes for it and drags it clear of the next
set. I stumble up the beach minutes later, out of breath from swimming, and try to thank him but he's having none of it. "No worries
mate, we get big waves like this in Sydney..." he's Australian!
There's a friend of mine I went to college with who, when we were both 18, started writing in his diary about all the girls he'd
shagged. Over a decade on, he's still doing this, and most of us now think this is a bit sleazy. It's time he settled down maybe. But
drinking and shagging are what he does so who are we to judge?
I bunked off work today, and probably annoyed a
regular client who pays my bills. But windsurfing is
what I do. I've just written in my diary, under July
25th; "Big Friday"
See Ya
Basher
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Spencer
A Force-of-Nature * 
Member #: 250 Posts 282
Registered: 17-6-2003 Member Is Offline Mood:
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| posted on 29-7-2003 at 01:17 |
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guess you are the same Bsaher that posts on the Boards forum?
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