COLD FEET?
A day with Blacky? It looked fine on paper, surely a mere eight hours on, at a yet unspecified destination in Cornwall, couldn’t be that painful, could it? Peering out the rattling frosted window in Newquay in the morning, the outlook did not bode quite so well. Vertical, driving rain was lashing across the car park while the weather forecaster on the TV was calling for minus 5 degrees with the predicted wind-chill. A couple of extra layers and some decent gloves and I’d be ok I told myself. Plus in these ridiculous temperatures I reckoned I would be able to survive longer on the beach than Blacky could last on the water, game on!
On the bright side, the weather was supposed to clear up and with the winds driving a six metre swell, I was hoping to tap into some epic conditions. I must admit when Blacky mentioned we were heading to Hawkes Bay, I was sceptical on his beach of choice for the day. I was hungry to explore some south coast reefs but Blacky was adamant that the conditions on the menu were a rare combo and when the tide hit the sweet spot, Hawkes would be firing. Being at Blacky’s mercy, I had no choice in the matter, so we trundled on through a maze of country lanes, as his van was bombarded by gales, hail stones and driving rain. The thought I should have given Blacky the cold shoulder, stayed at home and done my accounts or something crossed my mind as I gazed down at the temperature gauge on his dashboard, which was hovering around the zero to one degree mark!