surfing near Sligo

Last weekend I went on a surf trip with the people at the East Coast Surf Club. The social meeting on Wednesday at O'neill's and more had been loads of fun and the Christmas surfari looked promising.

Conor was very nice to pick me up and give me a lift. We drove past Sligo and stayed in a few rental houses on the road between Sligo and Bundoran, not sure where. Some of us hang out in the house and then headed over to the pub in the little town nearby, where other club members joined us as they arrived from Dublin and other parts of the country.

In the morning we checked out a few beaches before we decided to stay in one. The peak in Bundoran looked great at around 9:30am --glassy, shoulder to head-high a-frame, but given that the person who was giving me a lift didn't want to stay and the air temperature was only about 2 degrees, I found sensible to skip that great break and move on to her preferred wave of the day, a beach break with lots of nice, long rides, both lefts and rights. Before checking Bundoran we found an almost flat spot, and just north of the touristy town, an extremely messy one. A few km further north we stopped and changed into our dry wetsuits at almost freezing temperature and hauling winds.

I went out close to the parking lot and caught a couple long rides, but got cold soon despite the shining sun. With my shoulders tired from wearing gloves filled up with water on top of the cold temperature, I gave up and sat by the car hoping to warm up in the sun, but a couple of minutes later Glen came back to leave his too-small-hood in his van and cheered me up to come back out. I'm so glad I did!! I joined him and the other guys at the far left end of the beach and had a blast! I caught lots of really long rights and a couple of lefts.

Once back in the car, now with Frank, and Judith driving, the air temperature was 2.5 degrees at 1pm, with the sun still shining but the fog coming in. We went home to eat something warm, and came back with our dripping wetsuits for a second afternoon session. Now the tide was higher and the break on the left, by the cliff, didn't work so well. I went out in front of the parking lot and had a great time again! I caught tons of waves... and got my back frozen too... My booties and gloves are great, but I need to get some extra layers for my upper body if I don't want to get that cold again. Anyway, I caught so many waves between the morning and the afternoon, that less than an hour after the beginning of my second session I felt, when stretching my arms to stand on the board, that my arms wouldn't hold much longer. I then decided to come back in, but I was so tired it took me a while to catch my last wave.

I had a fantastic session and Judith loved the board she was borrowing. We went back, rested a bit, ate dinner, briefly hang out with other at home, and headed to the pub. I have pictures of that but I cannot yet download my cell phone pictures because I forgot the cd to install its pc software. Most people stayed later and then continued the party in another rented house, with live music and awesome singing, I'm told... but at that time I was already dreaming about the waves I was hoping to ride a few hours later.

On Sunday, however, there was no surf. We went down to another cute town nearby and walked around in the crazy wind... geez, it was difficult to walk : ) I also took pictures of that but they are in my camera, and the camera is in my hotel room.

Ok, I think I should stop here. Sorry for the length and the detail of the post... it's my first surftrip in Ireland : )