9.05am: Timo: Choosing the right kit was a nightmare. With so little time due to the tides I had to get it right first time. It was nuking, but I knew the wind is so gusty due to the cliffs. I opted to risk it and use my smallest gear, something I never usually do. I figured that the forecast was for the wind to only get stronger and on such an extreme wave the last thing I want to be was overpowered. Launching is a mission. I have to first make it through mast-high surf breaking in less than a foot of water and dry reef. The actual break is about a mile away from where I launch so I just pray I don’t break anything.
9.15am: JC: I finally make it to a decent shooting vantage where I can see Timo drop into his first wave. It is so windy I am not even sure I can shoot safely with the camera on the tripod and am literally battling to hold everything steady enough to shoot. To make matters worse my hands are freezing and numb. All the surrounding rocks are wet and slippery and I can just feel an accident on-the-cards in this wild, wintry weather. I am quite a long way from the van now and that tide looks like it is surging in. But when Timo drops into his first wave all the parameters change. The wave is well over mast high, folding over top-to-bottom and even spitting spray out of the barrel as the energy of the water is unleashed. Wow, that looked nuts! Time to focus on the photography and stop worrying about the freezing icy winds and incoming tide. Are we insane? I think we might be!
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 the usual way-points I use for lining-up 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, this is definitely a proper ground swell. As the wave starts to hug the reef I start to make my drop. The wave breaks so fast 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 barreling 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.