Summer surfing (you can keep it)..

Summer surfing. Driving down to the beach, windows down, Jack Johnson on the player. A chance to wear those Billabong boardies you bought rather than that wetsuit the Michelin man would be proud of. Birds in bikinis. Water you could have a bath in. Maybe on the North shore of Hawaii but let me tell you to forget it if you visit the northern coast of England.
Lets get one thing straight - at any time of year their are plenty more reasons NOT to surf than to surf. Drowning, being eaten by a shark, catching some sort of disease and/or ear infection / hair dropping out (delete as applicable) from some sort of waterborne infection being small examples.
Its not like we get a lot of surf up here in summer. A look on the map will show why. The North Sea is small. Unlike resorts in say Devon and Cornwall which face the Atlantic we pretty much have to wait for some fairly localised bad weather to produce the stuff. Unlike us it doesn’t matter if its red hot in the South West as long as the weather is crap off the coast of North America as the swell is then coming your way.
Having endured sleepless nights as the UK sweltered in the hottest July ever trips to the coast showed a scene reminiscent of the Caribbean - blue seas without a wave in sight. A turn in the weather however (read sleepless nights because its now too cold, wind, torrential rain and yes hailstone) meant a quick check on the swell forecast web site MagicSeaWeed. The swell forecast for Scarborough had been showing up at around 1 foot pretty constantly for the last 6 weeks but Thursday the 3rd of August showed over 8 foot.
So board attached I headed to work (on the coast) and made a brief foray out at dinner to check conditions. Cayton Bay still looked like the Carribean - with a hurricane. 3-5 foot waves and "messy". A trip to Filey was more productive in more ways than one. Due to its protection from "the Brigg" it was 2 foot and clean. In fact a handful of surfers were already in action. Not only that but a small amount of buzzarding reaped rewards with a sly smile from a female lifeguard. To counter this however was a disturbing sign at the life guard station - "Danger: Weever Fish". The Aussies and South Africans may talk up the dangers of being attacked by a shark but us Brits have to face up to the much more likely confrontation with this little critter. Yes when the seas warm up on our coastline the Weever fish decide to come in shore. Buried in the sand it allows its venomous dorsal fin to poke out waiting for the unsuspecting. Research on the Internet gave little comfort. "Death is extremely rare" was the encouraging opening salvo. "although respiratory failure and gangrene have been reported" was hardly a comforting footnote. If symptoms was bad methods for recovery hardly made good reading – “although paracetamol may work the best option is to put your recently stung foot in boiling water.”

Arriving in the car on Scarborough sea front my first problem was getting changed. It’s hard in winter – its cold and wet for a start. But I will swap that for some lady from west Yorkshire staring at me and choking on her battered sausage as I try and get into my swimming shorts.
Based on the fact it was August I decided to give the hood, gloves and booties a miss. The latter proved to be the biggest mistake in and out of the water. Avoiding grit and glass I finally managed to make it to the beach. Stepping into the water I soon realised I had made a mistake. The water in fact seemed no warmer than January. Oh well at least the Weaver fish might be confused. In truth I should have known better. The water in August still isn’t that warm - because water takes longer to heat up than the land it can be it at warmest in October and its coldest in spring.
My first run was a disaster in a number of ways. Catching a fast wave I knew within a second I wasn’t physically capable of the job in hand. Not only had I injured my ankle ligaments a couple of weeks ago playing football (see SuperSubs scribblins for more info) I had for some reason gone into the North Sea and attempted a sport that was probably more physically demanding than football anyway . Added to this I soon realised my feet must be teflon coated and nowhere near as sticky as my booties when trying to connect to my board. Falling back onto the board I then somehow managed to weight down the front and pearl it. Pearling is easy. All you have to do is manage to put the nose of your surfboard under water causing it to slow down and therefore bring the back of your board (and you) in front of it. Surfacing some distance nearer to the shore things were surely looking up - I had surfaced only metres away from a pretty girl. Unfortunately tangled in leash and now sporting a seaweed wig the only smile I got was one of sympathy. Not concentrating I then fell for the old trick made famous by the Christmas theatre cry "its behind you". In this case a "pounder" - a hard breaking wave that knocked me another few yards nearer the beach.
It was then that the taste of the water struck me. It was foul. That’s the problem when it hasn’t rained for a while. As soon as the rain arrives it washes all the crap from surroundings cliff and roads into the water.

So basically a bit of a disaster. All the hard work done in spring and its back to the drawing board.

I repeat - Summer surfing - you can keep it.