Learning to Surf #6 - First Day of Winter
I took a trip to Mulranny in Co. Mayo as soon as the travel restrictions eased. It was one of the first days of winter, and the conditions didn't disappoint. It's only getting colder from here...
The lockdown has eased up a bit, and having spent the last six weeks staring at the four walls of Claremorris I took the first chance to go surfing again.
Down to Mulranny, not somewhere I’d known to be a surfing spot, though it turns out there are a couple of reefs around nearby if you know where to look (or someone tells you where to meet them). I’d never surfed a reef before so this would be somewhat of a learning experience for me. Embrace the unfamiliar, as they say.
The lockdown occurred in a temporal bridge that began just as summer tangibly ended, and autumn was only a couple of weeks old, but has spanned the whole breadth of that liminal season so that now it’s most definitely winter – it’s December, and as I write this snow is falling outside.
I’ve invested in some warm winter gear over the last few months: thick wetsuit and hood, boots and gloves, so I look like one of those old-timey circus divers forcing himself into an old rubber tyre on a Tom & Jerry cartoon.
No sooner have I tried on my new boots than the soles of them are sliding in sheep shit, and my gear is being tested all over by a sudden gust of rain. One of those funny situations where you momentarily resent getting wet til you realise you’re about to jump in the sea – and you’re wearing a wetsuit. After traversing through a patch of bog I’ve to make my way across a field of rocks to get to the sea are more slippery than the shit and it’s like crossing a minefield, especially with the wind picking up and licking the board so its prone to go flying out of my hand, or to push or drag me over the rocks.
Although I can’t see any evidence of it with my eyes, I get a sense that the tightness of the hood around my cheeks and eyes is somehow constricting my peripheral vision. Regardless, I’ve barely a chance to take in the scenery around me, such is my need to focus directly on each step on the causeway-like arrangement of loose wet rocks.
Carefully down to water’s edge to make my entry, though more rocks sit hidden under the surface. Too early on my board and my weight will push down on them, though if I don’t get on I risk being thrown about and my legs being bashed upon the rocks by the consistent waves, which break right against the stony shore. I’m in though, and this being my first proper winter surf, my wetsuit and the extra warming bits seem to have passed the first test, as I’m surprised how snug I remain when I take the plunge into the water, where I immediately spot my friend riding in on a wave.
Sheepshit, bog, and wet rocks; grey clouds and rain and gusts of wind. This is all a far cry from the stereotypical image of surfing – sun, board shorts and hula hoops – or the one they sold us on the TV anyway. This actually makes a bit more sense to me, as the sense of punishing hardship is more in line with the feeling I get when I’m out in the water. There’s much more resilience in the air here.
There’s not a bad crowd out there, and we take our place out in the lineup. The waves are clean and the low sun blinds off the water’s surface. It isn’t the best day at the office for my surfing, despite everything else going well and being in order. I’ll put it down to rustiness and a break in momentum. But as I’ve been saying, there’s more to it all than just the success, and there is more to the learning than simply the final execution.
Time spent in the water is not wasted, on a personal level or in terms of learning to surf. There is the watching, the waiting, the observation. Seeing where the waves begin to break, where to position yourself, where everyone else is waiting. Judging the moment you need to be in the right place, how many strokes you need to paddle, exactly when you need to pop up. It turns out the wind blowing off-shore here requires you to take a couple of extra paddles to really catch the waves, which also progress slowly towards the shore as a result.
Once this advice is received I still have to nail the position, as the wave only really begins to form when it’s peaking, so you need to be right on the shoulder of it. It’s different for every wave, everywhere, and this is my first time at this spot. Better surfers know where this is, instinctively or from experience. More time spent in the water. Another hour here, another hour there. I’ll know more the next time.
From the water, I can take in the view I had to avoid on the rocky stumble to the water. The sun is low on the horizon, we’re nearly at the end of the year. It’s blinding but beautiful. Across the whole of Clew Bay is Croagh Patrick. From Claremorris on a clear day it sits a beautiful cone, as on the way from Westport – reminiscent of Mt. Fuji in Japan, the holiest of symbols of a mountains. From here it looks more like a misshapen lump, and I feel sorry for residents of the north side of Clew Bay who see it as just another smooth peak on a ridge, rather than in its sublime silhouetted form when viewed from the east. Though from here it looks more like a shark’s fin, or a wave, perhaps inviting sea-faring people towards it and into the ocean.
It’s nice to be back in the water, and it hasn’t gotten ‘cold’ cold yet in the transition from autumn to winter. At one point the sun is momentarily hidden by a blinding shower of pointed rain whipping straight across the surface of the sea. The clouds have plumped up and grown a deeper shade of grey.
“Yep, this is how it is out here,” my friend filling me in that these are typical conditions for surfing here,
“It’s one of the only places that works when there’s a north wind.”
You have to laugh, acknowledging the mild thrill of being in the water and accepting the weather as if it were nothing. The man in the wetsuit already sitting in the ocean fears no rain, though he might have to avert his gaze for a bit as the rain comes in hard and stings the eyes.
“This is nothing though,” he grins,
“The best bit is when the hailstones come in!”
I can’t wait.
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