As the winter sets in and the colours of summer are long gone, it's easy to sink into reverie and dreams of warmer climes, but maybe there's still happiness to be found within the montone seascape.
For many of us there's no escape from the cold and we must greet the winter face on, the gloom, the damp, the light so flat the horizon is lost in the sky. Endlessly watching the forecast hoping for the prevailing southwesterlies to abate for the bittersweet triumph of stolen moments in offshores. Freezing wind from the east blowing the mess to corduroy and then to ironed cloth.
You could send yourself mad with the longing but it's better to embrace the dark mornings, the frost on the inside of the windscreen that never clears quick enough, the teeth of the wind biting into exposed flesh as you struggle into the wetsuit that never quite dries, the shock of the first duck dive as you struggle through lines of whitewater, battling current and wind beyond the break.
Because if you look, through the waiting, the discomfort, the grey light, the grimace as your suit fills with 6 degree water for the first time, there's still that little spark of fun and stoke that keeps you coming back. Still the need to grasp that elusive sliding feeling we are all addicted to. Still the afterglow that warms you and has nothing to do with the van heater on full as you drive home, reliving the waves of the day.
It's still surfing and it still makes me smile...............
This is a slight cheat as it isn't my photo, it's taken on a diana by my friend Jim (star of the old blog banner!) but it is a picture of me indulging in one of my other obsessions, keeping the winter blues away with some proper blues (a bit of john mayall if i remember correctly). I really like the picture and, as you know, love a bit of self promotion :-)
Like many other locals, i've had a bit of a love/hate relationship with this spot over the years, lately i find myself ending up here more and more. It's the site of my first proper surf beating after an ill judged decision to paddle out during my first year surfing and it's one of those spots where it often seems to look better from the carpark than it is or better 50 yards down the beach until you paddle there and decide it looks better where you just came from. I, like many others, have had some frustrating trips here.
So i've kept this fairly surf based so far, but those who know me will know that guitar & music in general is another of my life's obsessions. I recently treated myself to the little vox amp in the picture. Four watts of lovely rich tube tone, looks like a handmade chocolate and best of all? 
We have some of the biggest tidal range in the world, tides are sometimes as big as nearly ten metres (thats 30 feet ish in old money). It sucks when you walk for ten minutes to the sea (in freezing temps) paddle out then wish you took the other board you had in the van, especially if you got halfway down the beach with the board in question first!
Not even snow and sheet ice can keep an addict from his fix! Short cold hike in was rewarded with a fun clean chest high session where the nasal passage was well and truly explored. Haven't ridden this log for months, pretty light by my standards (still heavy by most peoples!) but really fun to surf it for a change, even if i only chose it cos it was the lightest one to carry!
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