Rescue Board
The october bank holiday is a funny thing, while many people use this weekend as the rev up to halloween and are thinking of fancy dress, trick or treat, going out or even hiding away from it all, we at STHOEE believe there is another purpose for this particular holiday.
Surfing.Surfing preferably somewhere in the west, on rescue boards, or surf skis, or even our own boards, or boards we have begged borrowed or well, you know, the other thing, where your mate leaves his board in your house long enough for him to think its actually your board! ( thakns pete paulie K and peadar!)
This year a new crop of foolhardy intrepid STHOEEians followed in the tradition of joining us older folk on a spin to the bustling metropolis of Bundoran for a weekend of craic, paddling, swimming, surfing, and of course the obligatory "trip over the falls", "diving for pearls" or into "big green washing machine", All of those are just jaunty surf speak ways of describing getting it wrong, falling in and having the Atlantic Ocean teach you a thing or two about wave dynamics.
Crew @ Tullan
I remember the first time I went away with this informal bunch of mates on the annual unofficial surf pilgrimage, taking a step into the unknown at 17 or thereabouts sliding a shiny new bic plastic popout board into the luggage compartment of a bus eireann bus and camping in a wet field of a campsite inInniscrone, just a short walk over the dunes to the beach for some wet cold surfing.
At that stage i'd only been involved in STHOEE for about a year, but even by then I knew there were mates for life in the club and that i'd find it very hard to leave. Fast forwarding it 12 years and the same faces, and plenty of new ones are joining us on these informal non union equivelent spins to the beachier parts of the country. the only difference being that now we have newer and shinier toys to play with - like the paddle boards.
Catching a wave on a paddleboard is different... very different....
About 4-5 years ago we got them and took them to Streedagh strand in Sligo one of these weekends, and as a day it was unforgettable - cold crisp morning brightening to mild sun, an offshore breeze, good swell pushing the waves to 6' glassy walls of water steaming in in beautiful straight sets to the beach. I remember paddling out for the first time, KP about 10 metres away, punching out through the lip of the waves, amazed at how easy they were to paddle through the waves, but having the odd wobbly balance moment, getting out back at last and sitting up, looking at benbulben, a dusting of frost on the slopes and thinking to myself, this is what its all about, doing something fun, in the water, with my mates, and about to take a step into the unknown.
I remember turning the board, paddling a little back towards the shore as another set came in, nervous, wondering what happens when you catch a wave with one of these things. One thing that I clearly remember is the silence that comes between high waves, where you dip into the trough between them and it all goes quiet, then you hear the hiss and rumble of the next one catching up on you. Paddling like i was being chased by a pack of angry dogs was next, trying to make sure that i caught the wave, but I needn't have worried there's so much foam in the boards that they catch pretty much anything.
Before I could think of much more the board took off like a rocket, with me clinging to it for dear life, grabbing the staps and pulling myself up onto my knees. I remember kneeling right at the back , looking out at the beach, then down at the nose of the board as 6' of it stood straight out from the wave in thin air, the rest, buried back into the wave just under the lip thinking to myself, this is amazing, I cant believe I'm actually up here. But like many things to do with the ocean, i was soon taught a lesson - dont get cocky with the atlantic, as the thin air gravity situation did its thing at the nose i watched it drop, and hit the face of the wave and shoot off down it, me managing to hold it for a few seconds before i was spat off over the nose and sent for a trip through the washing machine.
I popped back to the surface, got to the board again, looked around and thought, wow , more of that please but this time don't kneel up right away!
