Tuesday 28 August 2012

Grovelling in the white mush

It was a last-minute decision but I texted Chris and managed to arrange another session this afternoon. The waves were smaller, 2-3ft at 5s, and not as powerful as they were 12 days ago; the wind was a light onshore breeze. Consequently, I wasn't as shattered as I had been last time but, that said, this could be as much to do with exercises here at home, press ups and similar.

The session was pretty successful in that I caught most of the waves I went for and stood up on about 50% of them; I'm getting faster at getting to my feet. However, I was having a bit of a problem with nose-diving and losing my balance, unlike last time. I also found that I was dragging my front (left) foot quite a few times which is probably connected to losing my balance.

I have a couple of injuries, I jarred my neck and bent my left fingers back the wrong way, suspected dislocated (they're now painful, swollen and have had the ice treatment) but, on the bright side, that's better than jarring my fingers and bending my neck the wrong way!
I did remember my surf boots, which made things much easier. No cut feet this time.

I am hoping to get one or two more sessions before my trip to Cornwall in October. Having done 95% of my surfing in Cornwall throughout the 1990s, I know that the waves are better than here. They are less mushy and more longer-lived and, as a result, are easier to surf on. I don't like to appear disloyal to my home county but the IoW waves are not exactly world class and they're hard to surf on and Chris said as much.