It sure is Frosty out today

It's still unclear to me why an otherwise mentally normal person decides it's a great idea to go wave sailing in freezing baltic temperatures. After last weeks experience of southerly warm winds and cross off wave riding, this week has turned out to be windy but with a baltic blast from the North East making conditions chilly with sloppy wind blown chop at Pembroke. Pretty YUK all week with a strong NE wind blowing and about 2/4 wind blown chop. Nowhere to hide from this baltic wind this morning so may be pretty hard to find a clean wave anywhere. Temp has dropped a little also, but if you are really keen and fancy frost bite on your fingers you may find a messy wave to sail on down Pembroke at low tide. For this individual, I'm staying indoors and will hopefully earn some brownie points for when the winds are back in the west. The cold has it's advantages, for one I do like a nice cold beer after a sail. No fridge needed this time of year, just keep it on the door step. Those poor sailors in Maui have to spend a fortune on ice to keep their stubby cold.

So if the cold doesn't float your goat boat here's a few pic's to warm you up from a fun little session we had last year at Centres riding the inside section, accompanied by a nice warm westerly wind

A Farewell Wave

Hutchy

Jas

Ollie

Matt

Myself

The Boys

A light offshore breeze had given the waves a little more lift than usual, hollowing them into, tempting chilly tubes. And somehow, despite a resent string of soupy, grey mornings, there was not a hint of fog in the air.

Vazon played host to twenty plus sailor's on Saturday morning, who took to their boards in their appropriately dark coloured wet suits in remembrance for Jamie. It was a morning that Jamie would have revelled in, a classic South West'er down the line session.

A big thanks to Hutchy for organising the day and to Pierre Bisson @ http://www.gsyphoto.com/ for taking the photographs.

Tragic news

Wind chimes woke me last night, always a good sign. So here in Guernsey the surf is a little bit bigger than yesterdays session, 5/6 foot and with a west wind blowing for the last couple of days has pushing up a nice sized swell. South West winds blowing 25 knots made for some nice cross one wave riding today. Light and fluffy winds on the inside made some interesting conditions getting out but well worth the effort on the return journey. The weather was simply dismal grey,cloudy and raining on the west coast,but the good news is the wind is going to keep on blowing for the weekend. Unfortunately for Hutchy on his last wave he took a nice wipe out and took out his mast. After a 5 minute swim he was back on the sand.Lucky for him he was wearing his new ion onyx wetsuit.

Don't know how much more of this I can take. Four days of wave sailing and the body is broken, old sailing injury's are starting to play up, knees and ankles are showing their age. More of the same for the next couple of days and Saturdays forecast is looking good.

CONDOLENCE'S

The sailing community here in Guernsey was shocked by the news of Jamie Whalley's death while skiing in France with friends this week due to an avalanche. Jamie was a regular sailor at Vazon and will be remembered by the surfing community here in Guernsey. Out of respect to Jamie's passing, Hutchy has asked everyone to meet up at Vazon Bay at 10.00 am on Saturday morning and go for a sail. On behalf of all sailors and surfers alike, we offer our deepest condolence's to the families of all who were involved in this tragedy.

Phil..........

Dark winter nights

A sailing buddy of mine phoned me up, saying "are you mad " Why are you still at work! The wind is up, get your ass down the beach ASP. It took me around 30 minutes to get home grab my kit and get in the van and drive to the beach in a frenzy, another 10 minutes of frantic rigging, as I only had an hour of sailing before dark (I hate these dark winter nights). That's when all the fun started. Rigging my new North ice hd 5.3 on an 80 liter kode. As I hit the water and had my first run out I was a little over powered but with the wind way round to the south and cross off Vazon can be a bit on the gusty side so you need a bigger sail to help you get out. The waves were small and fun to sail on down the line fully maxed out on the 5.3. Sadly darkness came all to soon at this time of year. The only thing that comforted me as darkness fell, I was not part of the disappointed sailor's who came down too late.

Dawn Patrol

Dawn patrol-sneaking a session in before work or any session beginning before 7.30 qualifies.

Windsurfing at dawn to a hard core windsurfer is like most people getting up early and going to a coffee shop.

The forecast for today looked good west south west 6-7 with swell, only between 3am till 11am , I had a session alert from Matt via txt and a call went out to the boys the night before to go for a early morning session down Vazon to catch the conditions before the wind swung to the north west and dropped to a force 4. As we have had a very cold and windless period we were keen,very keen to get sailing.Finally it looked like there might be some wind in the early morning to get a quick sail in.

Two early birds, Matt and myself turned up down the beach at around 7.30 (still dark) and rigged 80 ltr's and a 5.3, as the wind looked like it was starting to drop.

Jumping over the storm barracade at the top off the slip as the sun started to rise over the horizon we were to find the tide was way up against the sea wall and left very little beach to launch from.It had blown all night and had thrown up a chunky sized swell,the wind had already started to drop so the early bird's caught the worm and we were still fully juiced on our 5.3s.

Sailed on the beach for a few runs then headed up wind to T'others for a session on suck ups,which was a little gusty on the wind front for any decent wave riding or jumping.By this time the tide had risen even more and we had no chance of getting out from where we launched.

So it was the walk of shame along the coast road until we bumped into Stu Martel coming down the road and we thumbed a lift back to the vans.

We hung around till the tide came off the sea wall and Matt went back in ,but got seriously spanked by the shore break ( or should I say the sand ) and broke his rope on his boom and was forced to do the swim of shame to catch up with his kit. Nice wipe out by the way Matt.

The first wave sailing of 2011 not epic but just nice to be out on the water after a long cold and windless few months

The wind turned to the Northwest and dropped as predicted.Well the swell is still running.........I hope it's still on,with no wind,for a quick early morning surf tomorrow......

Ormering

Tradional Ormering Basket and hook

Stu working the shores edge

Me checking the legal limit

Oreille de mer

The ormer is, perhaps, the longest standing symbol of Guernsey ( to the locals at least ) a native to our island's long before the tomato and the navy blue sweater named after our island.It is part of our folklore, something that has to be explained to people who haven't visited Guernsey and who haven't had the pleasure of sampling somebodies mum's ormer stew.

Oreille de mer translated means -The ear of the sea- not because of any special powers of hearing, but it is because it is shaped like one.

The ormer is a highly prized delicacy in these waters, so highly prized in fact that their population declined rapidly in the 19 century when 12 dozen could be gathered in a day.Gathering ormers is now strictly controlled by law, and can only occur on an ormering tide between 1st January and 30th April.

The search for the ormer involves turning over rocks up to your waist in freezing cold water on a very low spring tide in the autumn, winter and spring, despite the cold water, cold wind, scratched and bruised hands and sometimes poor catches, many locals go ormering for pleasure and tradition handed down by their grand parents.

Ormering----A compulsive tradition for the Guernsey man.

"Ormering tide" Creates an impulse in the Guernsey man's brain to the compulsion in a lemming, the need to head for that favourite piece of shore and hunt the ormer.

Small tide this week meant small catches as we worked our favourite piece of shore on our sister island of Herm. Stu T and myself went ashore while Geoffers stayed and looked after the boat.We had a poor catch of seven each and came home complaining of broken backs from turning to many rocks looking for the elusive little suckers.

New years day fishing

Long night early start.

Early morning new years day saw a early start for 2011, 6.30 alarm call woke me as the sea called our names to head off to Sark fishing.Had to cycle down to the pier with the skipper (el Capitain Stu T) in the dark to catch the tide on the Goudin bank south of Sark for a spot of banking for flats.

Early morning fishing....... is it really necessary?

By 7.30 Fortius was cutting through the tide like butter and we were off to dabble in some winter Turbot and Brill fishing.We had seen a dull and cloudy start to the day but the forecast did look promising for later in the day with the winds dropping to promise us a beautiful flat sea all the way out to the bank. I tackled up with a long strip of garfish as bait, while Stu positioned the boat on the crown of the bank for the first drift.The tell-tale tapping's of the rod tip after the second drift saw a nice tub gurnard landed by the skipper, followed by a small brill which we threw back.Then the fishing went slack for a few hours. As we were all hung over from the night before the tell tale knockings of a flattie sucking up the bait are not always noticed .Early session rustiness or perhaps lack of sleep from a night on the beer saw the skipper miss the first bite on his rod.Then all hell broke lose as a second tape on the rod tip woke us all up, jumping to his feet and clutching his rod Stu shouted, fish on, with a big grin on his face.The skipper reeled in and landed a nice 7Lbs Turbot. It is said what you do on the first day of the year will determine what you do the remainder of the year,so it looks like good catches for 2011