Grey Skies, Green Waves

by Tom Anderson

  'You what? Staying in on New Year's Eve?'

  'Yep. I'm not feeling too good, like. Getting a bit over the New Year thing, in my old age and all. I fancy giving it a miss this time.' I'd been repeating this, or something to the same effect, for days.

  The reality was that my friend Jean (nicknamed so because he hated France) had spotted a once-a-decade swell making its way towards Cardigan Bay at an angle that might spark a rare gem into breaking, and he'd cooked up a plan to hit it at the dawn of the New Year, along with Breige and me.

  From the moment it was suggested, I knew we were onto something epic. The deviousness I had employed to hide this plan was so far-reaching that I even lied on the radio the morning before. For a while now I'd occasionally gone in to talk about the contents of the newspapers on Radio Wales's breakfast-time show, and being nowhere near important enough to ever turn down a gig (unlike one of their other paper reviewers it seems), I had accepted a last-minute request to go in and do just that on New Year's Eve. With most of the world asleep and uninterested in following the news, this was, barring some hideous unforeseen event, the slowest news day possible – so before long the presenter, Sarah Dickins, and I had run out of topics.

  'So what are you doing to celebrate tonight then, Tom?' she asked.

  Suddenly caught out by a googly of a question, I mumbled, 'Uh, er…'

  In the virtual spotlight of the studio, I froze. All eyes looked across at my lonely corner of the table and Sarah lifted an earphone to prompt a quicker response. Silence on the radio is poison. It was a straightforward question, I knew, but I hadn't anticipated it. I could hardly tell the nation that my real New Year plans were to sneak before daybreak up to mid-Wales to try and catch one of the most elusive surf spots in the British Isles, and that I had heard on good authority it was threatening to break as good as it ever got on the morrow.

  But vanity can get the better of you when the media are stroking your ego and to get the skit up and running again I blurted out, 'Cocktail party – at my place. Some friends are coming around. Should be a good one.'

  'Ooh – what time?' asked Sarah.

  'Er, seven-thirty. Come along if you want!'

  'Maybe I will,' came the reply, in jest. 'Is that an open invite to all our listeners?'

  I wondered if she could tell I was squirming. Safe to say, I spent the rest of the afternoon dodging phone calls about the party that wasn't.

  Just under twenty-four hours later, feeling snidely superior to the rest of the human race, we were loading boards into Jean's van to drive through the dark on one of the coldest nights of the winter towards our destination.

  January has a bite to it that surfers feel perhaps more acutely than anyone else in Britain. It is a time of year when the sun that we usually worship is so far gone, so long lost, that it feels as if our part of the planet has been dipped into the sub-zero abyss of outer space. At night, when an easterly wind blows, a jet of water can be frozen before it hits a windscreen. The cold doesn't want you to surf. It tries to get in through any gap you give it. Before you get in the water it looks to creep in through the bottom of your coat, up your trouser legs, around your scarf. If you give it a naked hand it'll seize it and turn that smallest of appendages against you.

  And in the midst of these icy winds from the frozen continent to our east, we were planning to try and get into wetsuits and submerge ourselves in a sea that wasn't much warmer than the air it had been chilled by.

  But it was all about the sacrifice. The bigger the sacrifice, the bigger the gain. We were, after all, on the tail of

  one of the best waves in the land.

  Where exactly that wave lies, again, is something I could only print if I had a death wish – but I can tell you that the wave was a long, fast-breaking left point, that I will dub 'Pavones' due to its uncanny resemblance to the Costa Rican wave of the same name. Pavones had always held an uncomfortable place in my heart after I was forced to watch Breige surf it for a week whilst my leg was in plaster years before. I'd returned to Pavones two years later, to see to unfinished business, and it had left me with a lifelong love of fast left-hand point breaks. The thought that one existed in Wales was something I'd been losing sleep over long before this restless New Year's Eve. A challenge had been set, and I was going to surf the Welsh Pavones at any cost.

  It was all a routine to me now, a routine I loved – one that I had become completely addicted to – the buzz sitting up-front in the van as we waited for that first glimpse of coastline. The roads were lined with ice and even the odd patch of snow as we crawled through the higher parts of Carmarthenshire. Jean was trying to get hold of the sage-like Gower longboarder, known as 'Guts', with his mobile and was getting no response. A promising sign.

  Guts (real name Chris Griffiths) was another longboarder and one of the Welsh surfers, along with Elliot Dudley, to have really made an impact on the international scene. A veteran traveller, both he and his photographer mate Paul Gill (known, unimaginatively as 'the Gill') were formidably knowledgeable surf-spot buffs. If they were headed somewhere and you found out about it – which would be rare as they were pretty secretive about where they turned up – then it was as good a tip as you could ever hope for. The Gill would show up at my local breaks only on the biggest, cleanest days imaginable – and seeing him arrive on the beach would always send a chill up your spine. His presence indicated you were surfing the finest waves in Wales, or even further, that day.

  One of the main factors leading us to call this trip 'on' last night had been Jean's inability to reach Guts on the phone. Jean worked with Guts, fixing the surfboards he made ('Guts Surfboards' – again a creative name), and had been talking to him a few days earlier about the possibility of Pavones breaking on New Year's Day. Guts had been in a particularly friendly mood, perhaps brought on by the Yuletide spirit, and hadn't ruled the rumour out. Guts mentioning that he thought one of the classic surf spots of legend might be about to work, only to then go off the radar, could only mean one thing.

  'You know it's gonna be pumpin' when he gets all cagey about where he's going surfing,' Jean explained, as the first hints of sunrise started appearing in the wing mirrors. Patches of black ice had covered most of the roads on the way up, causing us to make much slower progress than we'd hoped. Grit stocks had been waning after a Christmas period of frequent freezing temperatures. Any patches of water that had got caught in the cold blast had turned rock hard, stuck sorrowfully in place like corpses of puddles.

  We didn't want sunrise. That would mean waves were going to waste.

  However much we wished darkness to stick around, though, it couldn't hold off forever, and dawn had begun to break by the time we made it on to the mid-Wales coastal highway. An ominously clear, starry night gave way to a rising winter sun – and rigid lines of swell, stacked to the horizon and groomed by the biting winds. Tiny ribs of offshore wind brushed their way over the top of each wave, as they steadily rose out of the ocean behind a reef break breaking on the edge of a small, beach-side town, the name of which I will never be able to give you. Jean was highlighting this as an indication for what to expect at our own, top-secret destination.

  A blazing yellow sun had now raised enough to dip behind the dark grey clouds that hung above the horizon. There was moisture in the air – although the likelihood had to be that it would snow before raining. Sure enough, flakes began floating from the air above us as we paused at a rise in the road. A lay-by offered a view of the coast for miles in each direction. Whether due to snow, sleet or low-lying cloud, a rainbow had formed a few miles along the coast.

  'Fuckin' end of it's right where we're going!' Jean marvelled. 'It's pointin' to where Pavones is an' all!' His voice struggled to hide how overwhelmed he was.

  We hopped back in and pulled onto the road. I peered at his speedometer. It had started creeping steadily up. This was a chase now.

  'Better blindfold yourselves in a minute,' he joked, before turning off without indicating. 'Not
sure I even want you to know where this place is.'

  The road he'd picked had a 'no access' sign. This was private property but, before we could ask, Jean explained there was an 'unspoken agreement' in place with surfers.

  'We'll be there in less than a minute now,' he said, shakily. 'And it's gonna be the best surf you've ever seen in Wales.'

  After a build-up line like that, I hoped he could deliver.

  He could. Seconds later all his talking-up of the surf that awaited us had been thoroughly vindicated.

  The narrow road ahead suddenly stopped at a shoreline of round boulders. The first indication that the pot of gold existed was there before us: a long-wheelbase van with 'Guts Surfboards' emblazoned on its flank and two smaller, older vans next to it. A yellow commercial Astra and a red Transit. Behind these was one other vehicle: a white camper parked a little off the road.

  'That's the Gill's,' Jean whispered, reaching below his steering column to pull the hand brake up. My heart missed a beat. We had stumbled on a clandestine gathering of surf legends – this was indeed Rainbow's End.

  The three of us, Jean, Breige and I all jumped out of the van and ran through a row of beached boats to the edge of the point. Four left-handers, each well over a hundred yards long, were chugging in unison down the boulder reef, thick lips spilling down the line with a rhythmic, mechanical movement. As a fifth wave arrived at the point I saw a thick-built longboarder in a silver wetsuit glide into a take-off, drawing a low line around the first two sections, before going in to a carve at the first opportunity and setting up a straight-line dash towards where we were standing. It was Guts.

  We didn't need to watch it for another second. The desire to be in the water, to be ourselves hooking into one of these grinding, endless waves, was almost too strong even to get our wetsuits on. The Siberian winds vanished in our minds, no longer any kind of obstacle to our throwing layers of soaking neoprene on. Frost-hardened turf underfoot meant nothing. Grey skies or blue, water at six degrees or twenty-six, the only thing that mattered was the surf – a world-class, racing point break, firing directly in front of us.

  Getting ready passed in a flash – but treading across the rocks to the water's edge took an eternity. Holding my board against the wind, it was simply something you couldn't do quickly enough. Each pool and barnacle needed to be carefully stepped over, or through, with care. To try and run would result in going head over heels and slipping over a boulder. But with surf good enough to corrupt any thought pattern right in front of you the whole time, it was hard to focus. Patience was trying its best to desert me.

  Halfway up to the stream at the top of the point that looked the best place to paddle out, I saw the Gill, crouching and peering through a 600 mm lens.

  'All right,' he said softly, from within a raised duffel hood. His black moustache masked his lips, so you could barely make out what he was saying. 'Looks good out there. You're late.'

  'Late? It's been light for about twenty minutes!'

  'Yep. Guts and Kook have had some screamers already.' He cut off to train his camera at the line-up. A slender natural-foot with black graffiti on the deck of his board hopped up and rose fluidly across a standing wall of green wave face, kinking his back knee in to his body as he finally descended to the bottom and took aim, looking for somewhere to connect with the lip. As he threw spray out of the back of the wave, the Gill's camera whirred. This was Mark Jones, one of Swansea's hottest underground surfers – who had been nicknamed 'Kook' since I'd first known him. In the water he was anything but that. By the time he'd hit his fifth turn we were watching the ride from the back. Kook had gone so far down the point as to pass us completely.

  'You're next,' Gill said, raising an eyebrow. 'Get in there'.

  I waded out to my thighs with Breige and Jean alongside me, and then the three of us jumped into the prone position and paddled as fast as we could for the line-up. The waves were running down the point at such an angle that it was easy to slip out between them, and all three of us got into position with our hair still dry under thick wetsuit hoods. From the little bits of wind spray that had caught my face, I could tell the sea temperature was bordering on lethal. The only skin I had left exposed, my cheeks and forehead, were already burning with cold.

  There would be little let-up from the ice cream headaches if any of us got caught in front of a set, because waves were coming through pretty much constantly.

  Paddling out I'd expected to drift down the point a bit, as so many waves churning their way along a shore in the same direction normally create a rip, but this hadn't happened so I was still quite a way behind the part of the wave that looked best. The Gill was now fifty yards further down the line, and the first part of the wave seemed fast and hard to keep up with. Thinking it preferable to paddling along the point though, I figured I'd catch one and see how far it could get me.

  I took off on a wave that was only just over waist-high and concentrated on streamlining my backhand stance as best I could, angling my shoulders to get tight and place myself in the high point of the lip line. Squeezing all the momentum I could find from my board, I revved as far ahead of it as possible. With that bitter wind flying up the face, you could feel the smooth speed of a powerful wave beneath your feet. A little along the section it occurred to me that I may well make it through to the main corridor after all, and that the wave was actually growing in size as it reeled along. By the time I'd raced around onto an invitingly stacked shoulder, I'd become completely consumed by the glide. Each time I aimed a turn at the top of the wave it would jack-up and I'd need to cut the turn off, crouch and fly along another section. Kook passed by on his way back out and cheered at me as I dropped back down to find the wall now well over my head. Right across the bay in front of me I could see water drawing in, pulled by the energy of what I was riding. And still it raced on. Eventually, as a thumping close-out primed itself before me, I aimed all my speed at the pitching section, floating weightless across it and landing with a jerk that caused my knees to crumple. With all my senses on overdrive, I was ready for the impact and rode out. I jumped back to my stomach and turned for a little concrete slipway, having just ridden for such a distance that it was going to take several minutes to walk back.

  Drawing a deep breath, oxygen and adrenaline both met and collided inside my body and I let out a shriek to acknowledge a ride that rivaled anything I'd ever experienced before.

  'Yeeeaaaah! This is sick! SICK!'

  I ran back to the grass, to the pathway up the point. I wanted to yell. To tell someone. I wanted another one.

  'Did you see that?' I screamed at the Gill as I cantered past him, this time seemingly immune to the risk of slipping on the rocks.

  'That was nothing,' he shot back at me coolly.

  Bristling with impatience, I waded out closer to the middle of the point this time. It meant having to duck dive, and I could feel my head contracting. I arrived in the line-up holding my temples and wincing, but was immediately distracted. It was Kook's turn to fly past me on a bomb. A born showman, he kinked off the bottom right where I was and aimed a bucket right for me. His fins swooshed through the green, see-through rear of the wave as he dropped back down and prepared to enter the racetrack himself.

  This wave was so flawless you could get a buzz simply from seeing someone else ride it.

  That was illustrated perfectly on the next set, when in front of a rolling mound of white water I spotted a few surfers scrambling to get out the way. The biggest wave yet was coming through and at the top of the point it had crumbled across the line-up. One of the surfers managed to latch onto the avalanche and get to their feet. They stood up, waiting for the wave to adjust itself and hit the main strait as hard and fast as a solid set might do in any of the world's finest breaks. The surfer held on as the wave began to topple and then I spotted the white deck and pink rails of a very recognisable board. It was Breige.

  I was one of several surfers hooting at her as she began to tear across a w
ave well over twice her height. It was a wave shaped to drag you to delirium, and as she whizzed past I could hear the lip crashing across the trough below. It sounded like a peal of thunder tearing through the atmosphere. My head turned to watch the back of the wave, but so much water was getting lifted off it by the wind that it rained for a few seconds, by which time she was already past the spot where Kook had kicked out. She'd have a long walk herself now, too.

  What made these waves so supremely suited to surfing was the way that such an awesome display of the ocean's power had been harnessed to move with such precision. The raw force of the swell was transferring into a source of power that seemed tailor-made for a surfboard. Each wave would give you the feeling you were burrowing into something special as you stroked over the ledge. The faces were so smooth you could jump to your feet while angling for the ride ahead. Beneath you would then be all the fuel you needed to turn wherever you wanted to go. To move, react to and interact with such speed, derived from no source other than the natural movement of the ocean, was a feeling of purest freedom. Ruler-straight lines of water were stacking up behind the point over and over – each of these waves a blank canvas. Every time you took off it was in the knowledge that almost 500 yards of pure pleasure lay ahead, in which you made the rules and nobody else.