Owner:
Harry
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Member#: 186 Location: Registered: 14-04-2003 Diary Entries: 418
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31st December 2005
Windsurfing: Daymer Bay Wind Direction: W Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Mild Sea Temperature: Weather: Sun, occasional showers Max Speed: Distance Covered:
Windy again so drove the 45 minutes down the road to Daymer. Last time I sailed there it was marginal 7.5 weather, slightly dull, but
gave me a taster of what the place could offer. So was hoping it would be a tad more interesting today...
And Oh Yes indeed it was! Arrived midday and tide was low with perfect flat water and about 10/15 groovers/speedsailors out. At the
entrance to the river some seriously big looking waves were breaking on the outside sandbar, all good. Again like yesterday I rigged
slightly bigger to allow easy upwind access to the other side of the river and the Doom Bar (love that name!).
Straight into the straps as soon as I hit the water and oh what joy to be blasting on such smooth flat water with none of the south
coast lumpy chop crap. Getting upwind to the other side of the river was easy and the waves on the Doom Bar were just starting to pick
up. Had a few blasts out to the river entrance where it was seriously big and closing out, making me bottle it and gybe each time just
before reaching them! Not a problem though since the residual swell that was making it into the river was now turning into some of the
most perfect boom to half-mast sized waves that I have ever seen. I couldn't believe my eyes as set after set of 100-200m long waves
rolled in, peeling all the way and often just refusing to close out. Adding in the perfect cross-wave westerly wind...was time to get
meself some serious down-the-line action! Unfortunately the wind was a tad gusty and getting sufficiently upwind to ride the waves
properly was difficult, and I didn't catch as many as I would have hoped. Nevertheless I got in a fair few pefect front-side rides, and
one wave with (can't remember) 4-5 proper bottom turns. I was really wishing I was on my wave board since although the skate was good
it wasn't turning all that sharply and wave-riding with the silly little freestyle fin just felt plain wrong.
After a couple of hours of this the wind dropped off and I thought that was game over so I headed back across the river to the beach
for a break. Annoyingly the wind then picked up again, so I went back out, but by now the tide was high and getting out through the
completely onshore break on the main beach to the other side of the river (now a long way away) was nigh-on impossible. Meanwhile I
could see the sailors who had stayed over at the Doom Bar still loving the perfect waves over there grrrr. I played around in the
onshore waves on the main beach for a bit but it wasn't much fun so packed up after about half-an-hour. Just as I was about to leave
and with the daylight fading Martin turned up having driven from Exeter, even though I'd called him when I'd arrived, what a mincer! So
I waited around for him whilst he had a crappy half an hour until the daylight completely disappeared.
Today's conditions should have made it a five-star session but annoyingly I didn't make the most of them so it's only(!) four.
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