The Batemans Bay wave rider buoy is back online after going adrift at the beginning of February. This morning the easterly swell was about a metre with a maximum of two metres and a period of about seven seconds. And, it was forecast to be hot and sunny, perfect for a surf day.
Doug and I paddled down to Denhams Beach from our home beach, but Denhams is a pretty small beach and the wave and beach was a bit too crowded for two kayaks, so we continued on to Surf Beach, where we struck gold, or at least lots of rideable waves. I quickly worked out that without my rudder down, the kayak would broach almost immediately no matter how I worked to prevent it so I worked a system of riding in rudder down, quickly whipping the rudder up once I got into the break zone to turn the boat and paddle back out.
This is not bar surfing, however, so every ride required a surf exit to get back out but it was all really good practice for Sea Guide. After a bit, we drifted over to Wimbie Beach and caught a few waves there but the waves were smaller and the rideable ones less frequent so we ended up back at Surf Beach. Splashalot Blacklock came by on his way back from a Wimbie Beach to North Head run and we all three surfed for a while.
Surfing was my Hard Thing for day 34, but I’ve done so much surfing lately and got so much more comfortable (and upskilled) that I feel like I might have cheated a bit today. Maybe not though, there was stiff northeasterly blowing on the way back so we did do a bit of harder paddling as well. The big thing I’ve discovered about surfing is that you need to learn to ignore the roar of waves breaking behind you. Even 1 to 1.5 metre high waves sound so loud that the lizard brain can be pretty convinced that sudden death lurks mere seconds behind.
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