Monday to Friday – on & off… again

Monday it was onshore and stormy. I didn’t even bother to freeze the webcam. Tuesday was fine at home. Got an early session (before work) and got my ass kicked by a couple of sets. Swell was building quickly and managed to get a couple but not many.

Yes, I know, it doesn’t look like it’s that big, but you’ll have to trust me on this one.

In the evening I spent some time with the French Surfing Royalty (capitals intended) on a fine terrace at Biarritz’s Grande Plage, celebrating Surf Session’s 250th issue. I can’t say I talked to many people except for a couple I knew already, ace photographer Greg Rabejac being one of them. Someone, though, was smoking clove cigarettes (to make sure everyone knew that he/she had just returned from Indo…). Oh well, clearly the French don’t need a king because every single one of them behaves like one. Anyway, it was nice to smell that scent again. I shall be there –Indo- in late September. Cool!

Wednesday was big and onshore… again…

…which means nice and off-shore in Laredo (2 hours West) according to Sendoa.

And Thursday was public holiday – 1rst of May – and the ocean decided to join the festivities throwing a nice swell (up to 8’ in the morning at the most exposed beaches).

Lafitenia was chock-a-block with Germans, Dutch and Italians… and locals. I didn’t even paddle out after counting sixty smthing heads (lots of them definitely not surfers) bobbing out there and ten more getting suited in the carpark. I had a little surf in the shorebreak of the World’s Worst Beachbreak (WWB) and it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

Apparently some other places were not that crowded: outside the Bay from Dani.

In the afternoon I took a short drive West to check a couple of reefs…

…but they were not working (strange with a long period swell like this one). Maybe it was because of the swell direction. I ended up surfing this reef/pointbreak in sub par conditions, with rocks sticking out everywhere. But at least it was just the three of us.

It wasn’t like in this photo -from a Surfer magazine-. The sets were breaking more or less where the second wave is breaking on the photo.

Today - Friday- I had another early surf at home…

&

… but the tide got too low after the first half an hour for the sandbank to work properly, and then it was close out city.

I had another surf at Zarautz at lunch time, in the shorebreak.

It was fun but the lulls were very long. The swell is fast disappearing.

Apparently in Salinas they had similar conditions (photo by Clau).

Titbits:

1) I haven’t checked any films for the St Jean de Luz Festival. I guess that tells about my interest in their programme. I might go tomorrow afternoon, though.

2) I am working on a new entry for the Donosti Surfilm Festibal blog, on the different posters they’ve had. I just found out that last year’s poster was an original work exclusively done for the Festibal by Andrew Kidman and Andy Davis. Read more about it here in a couple of days.

3) Finished the last Wavelength (nice photos from the North) and Carve (Wanderlust issue). Not bad, at least this time no one claims to be the fist to surf that wave in the Sahara (unlike what someone wrote in Surfer some months ago when the trip was first published). Busy with The Surfer’s Journal right now… and enjoying every single word of it so far.

Over & out.

First week of April - ...bitchy

This week she’s been a bitch.

After an extremely summery Saturday –but very frustrating: I didn’t take into account the neap tides and i struggled to get a good wave where i was, while other places nearby were going off-, Sunday came with a sudden change of weather: bye bye 25ºC and sun and hello rain and on-shore winds; still, there were waves to be surfed early in the morning (another miss, damn!!).

Good surfer and friend Pedrua @ Orrúa on Saturday. Photo courtesy of Pablo Azkue from Alaplaya. More photos from that day here.

El Acanti was going off on Saturday. Photo courtesy of Olas de Vizcaya through Buenasolas.


Laredo on Sunday before the big on-shore and the rain arrived. Photo courtesy of Viento terral.

It cleaned up a little bit by Wednesday afternoon, but being my wife’s birthday I went home after work. Some waves were scored by a friend at a place I haven’t surfed yet; good on him.

Photo of Orrúa on Wednesday, from Kukurustan’s blog (a good friend and a good colleague).

Thursday found me in Zarautz for the afternoon and I managed to score 3 ok waves. The tide, the wind and my stomach (way too full to feel comfortable when laying on top of a board) got the best of me.

Today the weather was back to spring: sunny and warmish. The waves were tiny but the webcam showed a 1'-2' shorebreak in town, and it looked fun. I gave it a go but I guess everybody else had the same thought. After 45 minutes I gave up trying to park and drove home.

Not being able to surf because there’s no surf I can take it. Not being able to surf because there’s no parking is a much harder pill to swallow.

Over & out.