I do love Durdle Door. I’ve done the trip down there three times now, twice from Portland and once from K-Bay coming back the other way in an easterly. It’s a stunningly beautiful neck of the woods. There are also always tourists there as well, who are a little bit taken aback and bemused as a fleet of windsurfers seemingly come from nowhere and blast around the Door. It is always fun to have an audience to play up to. First lesson I was ever taught in windsurfing when I was a grommet was ‘if you can’t pose, you can’t windsurf!’ Out there with my mates all going for it was awesome. We were all trying to read the signs in the clouds and weather patterns to get the gust and plane as soon as possible. It wasn’t a race of course but it is always nice to be out in front and scoring a lucky gust!
There was one funny moment that sticks in the memory. Joe North, my workmate on the trip, was deep downwind of me between Ringstead and Durdle Door. One minute I look down to him whilst I am marooned off the plane and I see he has a gust, is hiked out and fanging. I look away jealous as I try to balance just to stay on the board. Ten seconds later I look downwind again and I can’t see Joe anymore. I scan the area where he should have been … only to see him emerge from the water under the sail. He had run straight into a mega lull and had levelled himself. Joe is a great sailor, but the gusts and lulls were so hard to read because of the swell and rain distorting the normal signs on the water’s surface. The short last leg between Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove was easily the hardest. The wind picked up to around 30knots and the tidal stream was pushing up the coast against the wind direction. To make matters worse, it started bucketing with rain again so you struggled to see. I pushed downwind on a squall as the wind came in and gybed, thinking I would make it into the Cove on the next leg. I looked back at the coast and saw I was actually still right by the Door! As Si Pettifer said, “It’s like someone kept moving Durdle Door down the coast with you!” It was pretty entertaining and certainly gives you a healthy respect for the strength of the current. I also learnt that Ross is a master at balancing on slalom kit in no wind and that Kev is blisteringly fast when he comes past you; it felt as if you were standing still. I heard Cribby is mooting the idea of a far bigger trip in the near future, starting much further up the coast and finishing in Poole. I think if this trip proved anything it is that Cribby’s trip is only for the super uber-fit and of course the insane!”