Grand Slam

As the Welsh rugby team prepare for their encounter with France,Taran, Jules and I head towards Aberavon Beach for our own surf encounter, little did I know I'd be having my own grand slamming a few hours later.

The surf at Aberavon was smaller than expected (Phew) but nevertheless provided us with some good fun.  I wanted to explore some surfing skills and get used to the characteristics of my boat in this environment, Jules was going to meet up with us later on.

A feel for the conditions and a grand stand view of the mess coming towards me, I tried to capture some of the larger green waves before they broke but they just looked flat when I viewed them on the computer.

After an hour of messing around Jules arrived and got stuck straight in. Jules catching some air time on the lip of a lovely wave.

As the water wasn't too cold I decided to actually swim in the water and see if I could get some shots from that angle. Taran was out of the water messing around with his big lens and new camera, so Jules had to be the model on this occasion. After I told him what I was planning he said I was mad, maybe, but lets give it a go anyway.

 The result....see nothing to worry about.

And right there for the action.

I get back into my boat and start having a mess around.

By accident I make a very late take off and my bows start to pearl,

Going vertical, yeee ha

With no chance of a recovery I try to do a pirouette. (Looking at this pic now I can see that my body an boat are rotated in opposite directions, I think I needed to use the the other blade to pull the boat around. Any thoughts anyone?)

Just about to crash, and the next wave lining up to get me, better be quick with the roll.

Aberavon is a lovely beach that seems to go on for miles and miles and was a superb location for todays paddle, clearly waves don't have to be massive to have fun in a seakayak. Today I simply wanted to improve my basic surf skills, but I left with a taste for getting the boat vertical who'd have thought.

My thanks to Taran as usual and Jules for capturing my grand slam moment.