North Devon Surfing and Hambeldon 23/24 April 2005

We had a top weekend paddling down North Devon, Saunton Sands. Big grade four standard surf, Rick, Matt and I all took quite a pasting, although some more than others, Matt Pyne seemed to love it, even going so far as to capsize before the wave to be sure of a good upside down surf/beating, how we laughed. We reckon the wave height at between six and eight feet, the booster looked significantly smaller than the wave as it was being flung round inside the break. Not only were the waves big but 'ucking powerful, was quite hard to avoid taking a beating trying to get out. With a wave period of about ten seconds we got smacked by a massive breaking wave, got trashed, rolled up to find another one about to break, got pretty intense, lesser mortals would definitely have been swimming. We all got some clean air freefall from the top of the breaking waves, I left the water, closed my eyes expecting to get the beating a lifetime only to find myself bouncing in front of the break, was very cool. Front surf, side surf, back surf and spins were all easy to achieve as the power behind the wave made it super-retentive. Despite my early doubts of there really being eight foot surf off Devon I was proved wrong and we had the best surf session I've ever had.

Saturday night was a non-event, principally as we were totally spaked out from about three an a half hours surfing. Sunday was had potential for a bit of a river trip but the lack of a third person (and possibly water) made this difficult. We headed back towards London via Hambeldon where we messed around for a few hours, Rick and I set a equal record of a full ten seconds surfing in the hole. If you've seen Hambeldon on one you'll know that staying in there for ten seconds without getting trashed/washing out is not at all bad, Rick even managed some backwards surf action (apparently;).