Surfing the Severn Bore

See photos here

I returned back from skiing on monday and found the UK in the grip of a cold snap (global warming my ass) and remembered the promise that I had made with Kent to go and surf the Severn Bore on wednesday morning. I thought maybe that the cold has cooled Kent's enthusiasm and could support a sudden feeling I had to go "cluck-cluck". This was not the case...

Kent was more than keen to do it and the fact that I am such a good friend, I thought I couldn't back out on him... unlike his supposed other friends! He had already organised some boards, borrowed a wetsuit for himself and had a potential one for me... Luckily, I had mentioned this to Jason (the surfing around icebergs) and he had luckily brought his 5mm wetsuit from SA AND has a pair of simple booties... PERFECT, so there appeared no reason I could quit!

So after 1 days work I was back on holiday and we were driving down to Porthcawl on the south tip of Wales to a surfboard hire shop. Kent has organised for the guy to come back to his shop (from home) when we got there - so ended up around 8:15pm! We went into the shop and me being me spied a whole lot of things that I wanted to buy (serious sports equipment habit!). I spied a wicked pair of spit toe surfing booties... Mr Mastercard came to the fore! So now both Kent and I had booties (little did we know that this would probibly save Kent's life...). Two 9-foot foam surfboard and we were away - actually we managed to fit these INSIDE the car! Yip Kent's car is not called "The Sherman" for nothing.

Perhaps, I should note at this point that on the way down it was snowing a little... hummm... anyway back to the story!

A lot of phoning around on the way down (thanks Deanne) and we found that there were absolutely no rooms available anywhere near the surfing section of the River Severn for the evening... so we headed to the seafront of Porthcawl and found a very reasonable hotel (shot Mr Surfshop for the suggestion). Dropped our bags off in the room and headed down to bar - hungry and very thirsty. I spied on the board that it was "curry and a pint" - perfect... Unfortunately it was 9:15pm and the kitchen closed at 9:00pm - bugger... So we had a meal of a couple of pints of guinness.

the next morning, at about 6am, we had packed up and were heading back up the motorway, with the River Severn calling our names. We eventually arrived at the spot, Minsterworth, right next to one of our work projects - The Slaughterhouse (yes, an abattoir!). We jacketed up, opened the doors to the cold and began to mingle with some of the other people that were hanging around - some who actually were going to surf. We took a little walk down the river and found a nasty surprise awaiting us... there were sheets of ice on the top of the banks!!! This was looking to be a REALLY BAD IDEA!

Anyways, a while later and a lot more people around it was finally time to start preparing... so we shedded the warm clothes and put on the wetsuits (and booties). My wetsuit seemed like it might be warm enough, Kent on the otherhand... well... his was a triathletes wetsuit. So superthin with more "thick lycra" in some places :) So I lent him my "hottie" to put under the wetsuit (A "hottie" is like a rashvest but it has a rubber inner lining - so keeps you warm-ish). While getting kitted up we were interviewed by local radio - I hope I don't sound like a moron but all the guy wanted us to say was that we would pee in our wetsuits... it was to DAMN COLD to pee...

So half an hour before the bore was supposed to pass we followed everyone as they slowly slipped into the water... F$^K me... it was cold! The bore supposedly broke around the bank on the far side of the river so everyone started to paddle across, drifing with the outgoing river. Once supposidly in position we waited. Now at this point I was using my camera that I put in it's waterproof housing - funny thing was I was losing all feeling in my fingers! It was more than cold... no words can descibe the feeling. However, my body and feet were actually not 'that' bad (10/10 for the booties) and Kent although looking RATHER cold in his 'wetsuit' was probibly fortunate to have the spare booties. If his feet weren't covered then I am sure they would have been as cold as our hands - and that may not have been bearable, as the hands remained a lot of the time above the water.

So after about 28 minutes of mind numbing cold (were I not only lost feeling in the hands but actually lost all motorskills!!) the bore came - with about 10 to 15 people already riding it!! Unfortunatley we must have been in the wrong spot beacause by the time it came to us it had stopped being a foamy and was more a large ripple.... mad paddling couldn't get even the boat of a surfboard I had onto the wave/big ripple... so it passed. WE FAILED... and paddled back to the car.

However, it doesn't end there... Kent wasn't done! We piled the boards into the car, got in wetsuits and all and "raced the bore" to were the River Severn goes under the A40 Bridge at Gloucester... A few illegal manouvers, a rough park down a side road (Horseshoe Drive) and we ran down to the river and launched ourselves into the cold water AGAIN. Launched is a good word because where we got in there was a mud/clay bank and all one could do was slide down it and into the water - very graceful for the spectators!

So we paddled down the river and tried to draw on every bit of knowledge to guess where the bore would be best. (there were about 10 of us now in the water) The best idea was to hug the bank, grabing onto the river plants and wait... Quite soon the now much smaller bore came into sight and after much paddling I managed to get a little ride on it. I got onto my knees (lifesaving style) but didn't managed to stand up - not beacause I couldn't but more due to the fact that the 'ride' required a little bit of paddling to sustain it... not exactly Jeffreys Bay!

So back out of the water it was end of the show and we dried off, put the boards back into the car, drove to Wales, dropped off the boards, drove to Heathrow, dropped of Kent (who was flying out to SA) and soon I was home... with both mine and Kent's muddle wetsuits etc to wash before I could relax.

In hindsight I think we will definitely do it again next year - this time wait in the correct location AND put aside £2 a month towards some gloves! It was so cold that I only regained feeling in my right index finger after a few days! One of the worst bit was not the cold but actually driving from the first spot to the second, when I started getting feeling back in my hands, I can only imagine what it must be like for those arctic explorers who get real frostbite!

Enough of the cold - The next holiday is going to be somewhere WARM and SUNNY!

Ski / Snowboard trip to Borovets, Bulgaria

Deanne and I joined Laz's 2007 snow adventure to Borovets, Bulgaria, for some snow-fun. What we weren't banking on was the unusually warm weather the planet was experiencing, so the temperature was actually warm... but still we had snow (even if it was spring-snow)!



See my photos here and Deanne's photos here

The possie was 10-strong, with Laz, DK, Jason, Jimmy, Neil & Tamren, and Laz's two varsity friends (forgot their names now but will edit in when I get a new brain).

We headed out from Gatwick on Thrusday morning, arrived in Sofia (Bulgaria) and were wisked away to the mountains. As an aside... the taxi driver must have taken us through some of the worst areas that Sofia has to offer!!! The hotel Samakov is a great big (quite nice) hotel slap bang in the middle of the resort... less than 100m from the main gondela - so perfect (and it had an indoor pool!!).

Friday, we got suited and booted (and Skiie'd up) in the moring and then decided against going with the hotel ski-instructors and hired a guy called "Orgy"... The day was spent with a 3-hour lesson in the morning and then some lazy sitting around having a couple beers at the pub at the bottom of the main slope. I on the otherhand (because we didn't buy ski-passes), spent the rest of the afternoon walking up the main training slope and than skiing down, then uncliping, walking up, and skiing down, then unclipping, walking up....etc, etc, etc... Eventually after I was knackered the boys came back and I managed to drag Neil, DK and Jimmy up the slope to "practice". Neil had zero control (but a lot of balance!!) and instead of turning managed to point himself down the slope and rocket down... pretty impressive - if it was done on purpose! The rest manged to do some turns and everone had a couple of spills - some of which I caught on camera! Jason, Laz and the others were all on snowboards and carving up the top of the mountain.

The first days skiing over, it was time for beers, food and partying... I being completely "soft" called it a night fairly early but I am told that the others "hit-it-hard"... apparently although Bulgaria is cheap... it is still not cheap enough to be able to by every fine looking female in the bar a drink [or worse :) ]!

The next day, we binned Orgy and went for a ski-instructor from the hotel... far better! His name was "Constantine" and he "...normally teaches the Russians skiing...". He took us up the slopes to a trinaing slope at the top and after a couple training runs we were on the button-lifts and dominating the green-slope! The training was over just after lunch and Constantine had proven himself a winner! So Neil, DK and I joined with the other boys and hit a couple more serious slopes... we were masters! Well... besides Neil (at one point not being able to turn right on one of the slopes and almost skiing horizontally across 3 slopes :) (one had to be there.... Laz said he laughed so hard some pee came out!!). Then we hit the longest, fastest button lift I have EVER gone on... Neil managed to fall off somewhere luckily not to far from the top, so we spent a good 15 minutes just parking cheesy... waiting for the Pencils to walk up a mountain, in knee-deep snow in ski-boots... the boy wasn't happy when he finally managed to get to us and then fall over!

so ended another days skiing and it was back to the hotel, for food, drinks and a hard nights partying (with me pulling "soft" AGAIN!!!). The only thing I did do was go and buy a cool North Face soft-shell jacket.... wicked.... for like £27 (it's like over £150-or so in the UK) - turned out to be officially FAKE but made of the same materials etc... so a complete WIN!

The next day I binned the Ski's, kissed Deanne a goodbye-for the day and headed out with my baby (my snowboard) and went and carved up the slopes with Laz, Jason, DK, etc... It was good to be on my board again and I can now officially say that I prefer snowboarding!!! Although I would like to get better at Skiing...

A couple big stacks later, and after meeting up with Deanne, Neil and Tamren for late lunch, we headed down the slopes... the end of a far to short snow adventure for 2007 :( Next time a week is going to be a must and if I do go for a long weekend again... I will have to do another trip with a whole week as well...like during 2006!

So the day over, we decided to bin the hotel food and went out for some local dishes... Somehow we got dragged into a steak resturant, where we all had the most expensive steaks on the menu... even though there were some rumours of missing horses in the area... Not the best place to eat in hindsight... The night was young and the lads went out... We managed a fair showing before calling it at about 12 and heading off to club-duvet.

A 4am wake up and a 5pm taxi to the airport for a flight out was all it took to deposit us back onto the "Island". What hit us when we arrived was a very cold UK... probibly colder than it was in Bulgaria and me preparing to go and surf the Severn Bore...

REALLY NOT THAT KEEN, with temperatures around freezing, but more of that adventure that I couldn't pull "soft" on!!!

Weekend Paris Trip

Deanne and I took a weekend break to Paris on the second weekend of March.

Travel was via the Eurostor into Gare Du Nord on Friday morning and our hotel was the Emeraude Hotel Des Victoires, just a stones trow north of the Louvre.

We did A LOT of walking and managed to cover most of the standard Paris sights... although we resisted the urge to stand in queues for hours, so didn't bother making it up to the top of the "Steel Girder".

Food wise Paris was pretty good, Lunches were mostly had in Montparnasse - at an outside "fast-food" place selling filled bagets and the BEST hotdogs I have ever had! (French hotdogs kick American hotdogs ass's!!). The savoury food store just happend to be next to my absolute favourite food of the trip - a nutella crepe!!! For dinner we tried two options - a nice looking restuarant on the first night (ginger pork & pasta, and chocolate pastry thingy-majigs for dessert), and then a pizza place in some ally near our hotel on the second (Pizza, pizza and chocolate mousse). Actually the pizza place had a little winner of a pizza - smoked salmon, cheese and a blob of creme-fresh in the middle - very nice, surprisingly!!!

Otherwise there was walking, standing, more walking and some going in and out of old buildings... typical city sightseeeing. Of course there was a lot of phototaking and mine can be seen here and Deanne's can be seen here

We left a lot still to do in Paris and will go back again sometime to immerse ourselves more. This time Deanne has promised to be even better at French and I will sit back and place my order with her. I can't be expected to go and get drinks or do anything when I can't understand what's been said to me :) hehe...

Oh yes and I have been playing with Adobe Illustrator this evening - so here is another picture of the Eiffel Tower on ACID :)