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!
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!
posted by David @ 11:54 pm
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