- Wake up before 6am, hardly able to open eyes.
- Surf looks terrible --it's extremely windy (wrong direction)
- Back to sleep, check surf again at 7:30-8. Similar-looking.
- Move car and sleep in, making time for cafe to open.
- Book seaweed bath.
- Have lovely, slow breakfast while editing last weekend pictures on my laptop.
- Seaweed bath: super relaxing, cleansing experience at Voya, Strandhill.
- Drive to Streedagh: too small.
- Eat pil-pil prawn salad + glass of wine in Grange.
- Drive to Mayo looking for sheltered surf spot.
- Find one, surf small, fun waves with a semi-local, very friendly guy.
Sunday
The wind at 6am was not quite as strong as over night, but the direction was still wrong and the waves at Easky right didn't look appealing. After deciding not to surf at Easky or Enniscrone, I ate breakfast at Magumbha's, a lovely cafe with awesome food and friendly staff, while waiting for the tide to go out and come back in to surf a particular spot. I met a semi-retired man who told me about his daughters' friends being surfers too. They all live in Dublin and are happy to come see him on the West coast, where he lives. The man used to live in London and worked at several pubs, then owned one. He only moved back to Ireland when his parents had delicate health. He was a very friendly and chatty person, an interesting one. He told me a story he wants to write about --we wanted to be a writer when he was growing up, and he encouraged me to write about my experiences (so here I am, writing on my blog months after my last post!)
Sunday was a beautiful rainy day. I headed for Mayo, where I'd surfed on Saturday. Kilala, a very neat little village I'd driven through 1.5 months ago, was full of cars parked near the church. Then, following the coastline, I passed next to a sandy-bottom area at low tide: I was in awe. I felt fortunate I was forced to drive slowly behind a car with a horse trailer, which allowed me to gaze at the sandy beauty regularly.
The tidal area passed Kilala is very extense and beautiful. I've always appreciated low tide sceneries -they don't stop to amaze me. The road became narrower here and I was all surrounded by green, by bushes and trees over-hanging on the cars. Hardly any traffic. Just light rain, green vegetation and a one-way lane old stone bridge crossing over a river.
I got to my destination a bit early: I walked around and checked the cliff drop near the parking area, then headed in the direction of the wave to take a closer look. The wave isn't quite working yet but I knot it'll improve with the incoming tide.
"I'm standing by a slab, observing the beauty of nature. Rocks here are almost like cubes, reminding me of a cubism painting. They seem man-cut and then eroded by nature. The seaweed on the flat rock looks like moss. It covers the flat rock and where there is a lump, the seaweed goes up accordingly. The rock platform ends at a 90ยบ edge and falls straight down; here, the bright green seaweed drops too, serving as a funnel for water constantly dripping to fall onto the bottom, horizontal rock."
"While I observe the little wave at the slab, I pay attention and I listen to the drops falling on my waterproof jacket. My body is fully covered by clothes wrapping around me. My prescription glasses are perfectly covered by the cap I'm wearing, in turn covered by my jacket's hood, attached at the front over my chin. It's windy: the wind pushes me gently and makes me move. I listen to the strong wind. The breaking of the waves makes some sound too, but the place feels calm --I'm at the edge of civilization."
Slightly cold, I started to head back to the car and kill 20-30 minutes, to then check the wave again. A few steps later I noticed my brand new friend, the semi-local surfer, heading in my direction to check the surf. We greeted each other and went back closer to the wave. We chatted while waiting for the tide to be noticeable and soon headed back to the cars to get changed. We had a wonderful surf session on our own, with lefts peeling unsensitive to the strong wind blowing outside this sheltered spot. We were in the water for at least 2 hours, catching waves constantly, taking unspoken turns. Waves were waist to chest high for the most part, with some shoulder-high at the standout sets. I had not had such a nice session in a long time.
