TIMING
Fired up on his great escape, Timo was keen to get back in the action and picked off some beauties as I played catch up. The adrenaline was keeping the cold at bay but after each ride we’d stuff our hands into our mouths to get just enough heat and feeling back to gybe and repeat the process. We knew we were on borrowed time though, the waves were the size and quality you wait all year for but to ride them safely we only had an hour max in these air temperatures and before the inevitable next squall came in. Sure enough the skies began to change and the wind dropped and swung even further offshore. We put in a series of short tacks upwind as we floated and waited for a set, only made possible by our huge boards. I dread to think what would have happened if we’d been on smaller gear. The trick now was going to be picking up a decent wave just behind its peak. There wasn’t enough wind to pump onto a wave but if we got a big one, the momentum of the face should just be enough to get us moving and catch a ride in. Timo tagged the first wave and I grabbed the last of the set, the faces were so smooth it felt like surfing and the temptation was to scream down the line with a few glory turns but we both opted for the sensible option, cranked one bottom and top turn for a last shot of adrenalin and then hugged the whitewater for as long as we could to cut down the swim in to the now windless shoreline. We clambered up the shore, slipping on the stones as the shorebreak tried to drag us back out to sea, struggling with our gear, which was hard to carry with no wind to fly the rig weight off.
Dark clouds were our signal to pack up quick as snow fell as we left the car park and we began the drive home through the sort of weather you don’t want to be driving in, passing more cars that had succumbed to the conditions. Timo just made his flight, the snow adding another 3 hours to his journey to the airport, luck was definitely on his side that day.
