Still no sign of the promised Indian summer but at least the waves (accompanied by howling wind) are with us.
This is proving to be good from a training point of view allowing me to get at least two surfs a day and because the surf is so lousy I can pretty much guarantee I’m the only one in the sea.
The wave where the competition is due to take place is a beautiful reef in County Donegal called Bundoran Peak. I’ve managed to surf there on previous trips to Ireland and it has always been well worth a visit. There are no waves in this area of Cornwall that offer the same kind of ride so finding something to practise on has been tricky but I have at least managed a few surfs at Porthleven. ‘Lev is also a peaky reef break but that is where any similarity ends – it tends to be short and sweet but at least the bottom surface is the same. Reefs tend to be more powerful than the beach breaks that Cornish surfers are used to and by my reasoning anything that is even vaguely similar has got to be helpful. I’ll keep my fingers crossed there!
The other more humdrum aspects of preparation for the comp involve filling out indemnity forms and letting the relevant authorities know that any asthma medication I take is not performance enhancing! It certainly doesn’t help me breathe underwater.
Five days to go.
