The sleepless nights of a road trip are worth it, the adrenaline keeps me going, in fact I think the thought of not going would keep me more awake, so either way I’d be losing sleep! As we all get older our priorities change, so our social interaction is either abusing each other on antisocial media or we cram it all into these sort of trips. Myself, JC and Mini G travel a lot together so we pretty much know each other better than our wives I’d say and Coxy is under lock and key these days so it was great to see Huckleberry out in the wild again.
I have a set of identical gear at home in Ireland, so I just added a surfboard and my SUP and some light wind boards, which actually was all I ended up using. If it wasn’t for my 104L and 99L I would have been surfing not windsurfing! For Ireland I always advise boots, the reef breaks are pretty sharp at low tide so it keeps injuries to a minimum, also a neoprene hood, actually just bring all your warmest rubber and clothes and you can’t go wrong! Packing a big board is the one thing people always forget to do here; NW Ireland actually is not that windy, so a big board always saves the day here!
I’d say we scored it pretty perfect, glassy logo high and just some amazing hollow lips. When Ireland works the conditions are the best in the world. Magheroarty was so much fun, we had the beach break pretty much to ourselves, sometimes the reef at Magheroarty becomes the centre of everyone’s attention but in my opinion the beach break can be way better when the swell is around head to logo high. It actually works more like a reef than a beach break, with smooth peeling hollow bowls and fast aerial sections all on one wave. I reckon I sailed for around 6 hours straight at Magheroarty, it was firing for sure!