8000 Miles + 7 Days 3 Swells 2 Oceans.
As it turned out, on Monday morning the organisers green-lighted Nelscott for Thursday, meaning I was able to fly out after surfing Aileen's on the Tuesday.
Cotty flew over on Monday night, arriving at 10:30 pm. We drove for seven hours through the night, arriving at Aileen's at 5:30 am, I nailed a sleeping tablet and bunked down in the back of my van under guns and tow boards for a few hours.
We had stacked the guns in the van at an angle and then put all the tow boards on top of them,allowing us enough space to curl up on the damp wooden floor of the van. We only had one sleeping bag between us and Cotty insisted I used it, so I gave him half my clothes to wear. I woke at 8 am and saw Cotty lying there, wearing all his clothes, most of mine, a life jacket and a board bag - it was hilarious! He still argues that I can't classify two hours' kip as sleeping like a log...
The swell wasn't due to hit until midday, but I get anxious if I don't check it out, so we donned our boots and stomped down through the fields to get a look from the top of the cliffs. Huge, storm-driven waves were exploding on the ledge: the surf was really angry, almost out of control. We've surfed waves of all sizes here before and this looked like a tow in job to us, although the inside rescue area between the cliffs and the break appeared more dangerous than usual.
It was like a white water rapid - one mistake out here could result in either one of us being stuck on the cliffs until the swell backed off enough to let the other go in on the ski to retrieve them. The safety channel was more or less closing out, but we thought we could get away with a few rides, so set up our stuff.
I towed Cotty first. I put Cotty on to a huge one - I saw him drop down a really steep face as the wave opened up into a huge cavernous barrel behind him. He got to the bottom and looked back up at the lip as if he was looking the thing straight in the eye, then navigated his way around a huge section that ended up detonating behind him and completely covering him in white water.
Somehow, he emerged from it in one piece and rode out into the channel. It was one of the heaviest rides I have ever seen at Aileen's - when the white water gobbled him up I was readying myself for a rescue. The monster Cotty put me into was definitely the bumpiest...
continued in Surfing Mennie Waves available...
Image Credits:
Conn Osbourne,
Gary McCall