9.15am: Timo: On arriving at the break it takes me a few minutes to orientate myself with where I need to line-up. The swell is much bigger than I have experienced here before making my usual way-points useless. I spot a huge dark lump of swell on the horizon, it may be wall-to-wall sunshine but it is bloody freezing, 2 degrees air temp with the water temp not far behind. I gybe onto my first wave. The swell is moving pretty fast – definitely a proper groundswell. As the wave starts to hug the reef I start to make my drop – it breaks so quickly here that you have to take the drop way earlier than anywhere else as by the time I’ve started my bottom turn the wave is already sucking off the reef and barrelling. My sail gets blasted by the spit from the wave, the power and intensity is like nothing else in the UK, the only wave I can draw comparisons to is One Eye in Mauritius, not only the intensity but also the sound of it breaking takes my breath away. It is pretty big, easily mast-high, but the power makes it feel like double-mast-high. The scariest part about sailing here is how shallow it is. On some of my rides I was actually air-dropping down the face as it sucked what water is left off the virtually dry reef! I was riding a quad and I could feel the fins touching the reef as I made my bottom turn.
