2 stars 4 sure. Better than nothing, but far from perfect...

Le Perron

Four days sailing in a row...................
I wish I could put it into words, but I really can't. Indescribable. I'll just leave you with a photo. Not my best picture, but the expression on my face says it all, lol! How good is it when you can be out in the boat one week then windsurfing the next! Love this place. Gotta confess, I had been getting a bit cranky due to lack of wind recently but I'm all better now. Good to see so many others making the most of it too.

When the swell hits our little rock in the English channel the variety of surf crammed into Vazon on this stretch of coast is absolutely mind-boggling. With near constant cross on shore winds from sun-up to sun-down blowing for the last week, it really becomes a matter of what you feel like sailing that day. A beach break that looked like Vargas friendlier little sister kept us content for the first day before it got crowded with surfers.  We jumped ship for the next few days to our second destination up the road to Tothers/ Gnarly suck ups a small shallow reef lying a couple 100 yards of shore with pretty similar conditions to the day before with a small and weak 3-4 ft West swell accompanied by a 5/6 WSW wind. Still some little peaks coming through just no push in the waves.  Good news is that the swell has picked up a bit to be around 5-6ft, the best conditions it has been for the last few days thanks to the last dying phase of  hurricane Katia.   A big outer reef A-frame peak called Le Perron way out in the middle of the bay had us bouncing back and forth between the two reefs.  It was firing in  sets but the sets were few and far between.  With a low spring tide and a big west ground swell running meant that the reef under the Perron was boiling with turbulence.When it's working and all the conditions come together it can be a very exiting wave to ride and can be incredibly dangerous if big sets are coming through, if the tide is low, the breaking wave can break on only a foot of water, or even dry reef (as it was today). Works best in cross /offshore winds from the south west. Tends to receive distant groundswells and the best swell direction is from the west.  Best around mid tide when the tide is rising.  Hutch and I hit the reef first playing safe on the shoulder to check out how deep the reef was only to confront a nice lump of granite on my first drop, a little unnerving. The wave was logo, sometimes mast high. Took a bit of time before I got the hang of the wave. On the other hand Hutch was right in there like a rat up a drain pipe. The Perrons made up of 4 to 5 reef heads with the swell snaking its way through and breaking on the heads causing the wave to break in different spots.   Finally there I got some nice rides , not epic. But after many days with small waves I was stoked to get some bottom turns in.

The surf was flat, but the vibe was good.

As I haven't been wavesailing for a little while, my hopes were on for Wednesday's sail. The forecasts was great. Side On condition and about 6 Beaufort all day long . All morning it was raining, but when I arrived the sun started shining. Hit the water with Stu Martel and we ripped around for a while then it started to get a little boring with no waves so Stu broke out his Gopro for a bit of fun. I took the Gopro hd head cam out to the water, but me and film....I cant find the time to edit some.
So I quickly threw this together for now....  Check out the Vid ......and the nice 360 at the end. (Turn your speakers on great sound track to Tiesto) 
.   

Nothing big nothing great but Good Fun

Had fun sailing the last few days with the boys.
Pumping wind all day everyday for the last three days.
Nothing big nothing great but Good Fun.
The hunger for better waves still needs to be cured.
Fun small waves on Monday..
Good waves on Tuesday with some sets coming through at 3/4 mast with gusty winds..
Today flat on Tothers, head high on the beach..

Two shots of my good mate Matt

Sand waves

4,7 AND SOME WAVES

Rigged up and ready for some action

I am sitting in my nice warm home listening to the powerful wind blow against and around the house, breaking branches and tossing my neighbour's garbage all over my lawn.

  The first battering of the season will be arriving courtesy of an Atlantic low pressure system winding itself up to the south west of Guernsey tomorrow.  Autumn opens it's doors with strong winds sweeping the islands, fast ferries cancelled, fallen trees and possible structural damage.  It's time to break out some new toys and hit the beach. Surfers.....There isn't any! Hooray! Awesome! Most excellent!.  Lumpy, junky slop, wind swell about waist to head high. Nothing to it. But heah, we can't complain. Last week my new 2012 Ice HD's sails and masts arrived from North and it was time to break them out of their wrapping and put the 4.7 to the test. Here's what North have to say about the Ice......

 One happy owner of the 2012 North  Ice HD
 "Ice Age"

  Numerous changes are hidden in detail. E.g. the shorter luff has a very positive effect. Everything feels more compact and at the same time more neutral making the ICE easier than ever to handle. The handling has improved significantly, without loosing any planing power of its predecessor thanks to a modified luff curve and optimised profile distribution. It is unbelievable how just a few centimetres can make such a change!

Enough of this advertising and time to put it to the test.
The forecast for today read:

Weather : Bright or sunny periods at first this evening with the slight risk of a shower, then becoming cloudy with a little rain or drizzle by the morning.
 
Min : 15 °C

Visibility : Good, locally moderate to poor by the morning.
 
Wind : Southwest fresh F5 to strong F6, increasing strong F6 to 7 after midnight.
 
Open Sea State : Rather rough becoming rough

Haven't been on the water in 20 days. After many weeks without any really good conditions, it looks like the next few days will finally deliver some serious action. It is worth the wait because today was sweet! Wind and water wasn't too cold and I was on a 4.7 with an 80L board. Jibing was lush on the inside but a little bumpy on the outside with some nice ramps to be had even though the waves were a little confused down on the beach, the hunger for better waves needs to be cured. Hopefully that will come tomorrow. With tomorrows forecast looming many a desperate Guernsey windsurfer is looking to take a day off from work to get a day of perfect conditions. After about four hours out in the waves I was hungry, exhausted and very pleased with myself after pulling off a few sweet forwards and some nice bottom turns in the confused surf.

My sailing buddy Matt was also out with his new kit, a new Carbon Art wave board fresh out the costumes shed and nicely finished off with a new Hot Sails fire. Carbon Art's total focus and vision is on designing and building the best windsurf and surf boards. Headquartered in a small and somewhat hidden factory near New Plymouth in New Zealand, Carbon Art manufacture precision windsurf and surfing boards for the world to enjoy. The founder, James Dinnis, built his dream business from a surfing lifestyle to become one of New Zealand's most industrious brands.

Carbon Art New Zealand
Matt and and his new stick.
The big man was super stoked to get his hands on his new piece of carbon 

Nice, warm afternoon, with heaps of people on the water and a general good and relaxed vibe. I guess for us Donkeys this was the last sunny day of the year.....and of course everybody wanted to enjoy it, cause our summer sucked, weather wise.  Great session to break my drought.

Battle of the elements

 "hot versus cold"
quenching the flame by fluid advection

The boys checking out the new stick

The walk home

Oh yes I forgot to mention.....

The new sails  "It does exactly what it says on the tin"      

It has finally arrived...been a long time since I had a ear-to-ear grin on me face following a great sess in the water.

 

New Toy - Fanatic 85 TE Freewave

WINDSURFING IS BACK..!  Nothing makes this messed up world seem beautiful again like a warm, windy, sunny day in the middle of summer and a new board.  It was so nice to wear a 3mm shorty again and to have a few extra seconds after peeling off my suit before I have to jump in the truck or risk becoming a frozen windsurfer Popsicle.

  What a beautiful afternoon! The sun almost made it feel like a summers day. The air and water temps were in the 14/18c very comfortable. The wind was pretty steady, especially considering that it was side-on at the launch.  The sun shining on the blue sea made the wind seem stronger that what it was, but I was pleasantly surprised when I hit the water, after having just received my new board and a new 5.3 North Ice. The 85 Team Edition Carbon/Kevlar Freewave build quality is out of this world and as a result I will be a little cautious when trying new moves, (destroyed my last ice spinning out of control on a back loop). My sail and board felt perfect for the conditions for once. I played in the tiny waves around suck ups just to get to know my new toy before dropping down wind to play on the beach.  The beach was crowded with swimmers and surf school groms so decided to beat back up wind.  By now the wind was a good 5/6 and I  needed this session. I've been like a diabetic with low blood sugar, irritable, easily angered, especially by bad wind forecasts. Now I feel better.

Enjoying the doldrums...

The weather gods have smiled upon us here in Guernsey. The fishing has been a little spasmodic in the last month with a few weeks of amazing fishing and a mix of some slow days.  The summer species have arrived with bass showing up on the usual marks.  Mackerel now around in numbers allowing us to catch fresh bait. July and August is the time the large bass arrive and their is no better bait than a large fillet of mackerel fished hard on the bottom, or a sandeel fished live when the water is clear!.    A busy few weeks with 6 trips in 7 days, really lucky to get such good weather in the two weeks I have had off work, and the fish have played too!

                                                                        Week One

Bayeux   Cathedral

Jen sampling the local calvados

  It all kicked of with a trip to the D-Day beaches in Normandy.  It had been blowing hard on the Saturday and I'd been out wave sailing (see last post) and did not expect the fast ferry to run on Sunday as the wind was still forecast to be gusting 40 knots with two meter seas. Sunday came and to our surprise the ferry was on time from Guernsey to St Malo. Two hour's later we were on French soil, Sat nav plugged in and ready to hit the road.  Rather than go straight to the beaches from St Malo we decided that we really had to detour out a little further south west and stay just outside Mont St Michel for one night  at a place called  Les Touches, this Bed and Breakfast is ideally placed to explore not only the beautiful beaches of Normandy and Brittany but to visit the wonderful town of Fougeres with its medieval 12th Century castle. The famous Le Mont St Michel is 30 min's drive away with the Normandy Landing Beaches about an hour. We arrived late so didn't have time to explore that evening. Getting up early the next day it was time to get back on the road and head to Fougeres. One of the most charming things about Fougères is that the oldest part of the town has been restored to its Medieval splendor. Many of the buildings now house touristy businesses like traditional creperies, where you sit on the patio and enjoy some cider while taking in a view of the castle! By the time we had a good walk around the castle it was midday and time to head off to our second destination closer to the beaches. Hitting the motor way the Crossfire was in it's element cruising at 130 kmh, the trip North west took no time and we were soon at our second stop La Beauconniere is a charming old dairy farm set amidst the gently rolling hills of rural Lower Normandy. Once you are here, you can quite easily visit all of the usual and well-known tourist haunts of Lower Normandy.   The bed and breakfast is convenient for Le Mont St. Michel, the beautiful medieval city of Bayeux with its famous Tapestry, Cathedral, British War Cemetry and shopping, and all of the D-Day Landing Beaches and Second World War sites from Pegasus Bridge to Arromanches, Le Pointe du Hoc and Sainte Mere Eglise. My cousin Vince flew in from Vancouver BC via Paris and meet us the next day to spend the next Four days visiting the sites of the second world war. 

The guns at Longues sur mer.

Mulberry was the code name for the artificial harbours
at Gold beach Arromanche

The American cemetary

Vince and Jen checking out a bunker at Point du Hoc

Week Two

Enjoying the doldrums...

Back on the rock after seven days in France, it was straight into action and out in Fortius for some bass fishing up at the point.  Found plenty of boats Sunday afternoon so we motored towards the Southeast, We wanted to find some of our own water to work, can't handle fishing in a fleet of 50 boats. All by ourselves we find some fish and Bang!!! Swimmer goes off, all hands do their job and I'm in.  I see colour and we're ready to net when POP and sandeel  comes back without the fish, oh well....Been there done that!.... Set back in and within 20 minutes we're on again but this time fish gets the net.  Fish marking well on the sounder for the rest of the morning but no love, until Vince gets his first Guernsey bass on the second to last drift.....  

fish taco time

 Back out Tuesday and there's waaay less boats, bite goes off just before slack and within an hour and half we've had three fish to the boat, one for a Mexican fish taco dinner that Vince had promised to make when we get back home and two for the freezer. Again quiet the rest of the day.

 

Well it's been tough keeping up with these weekly reports, but here goes..

  The  Bass has hit the August doldrums on Fortius a bit on our last trip of the week  but we still managed quite a few keeper Bass on every trip thus fa... We headed out to Sark on Thursday and tried our luck on the Goudin bank, but we were plagued with cuttlefish and red gurnard taking the hook before the flats or bass had time for a chew on the eel. The mackeral are making a run onto the banks and it never seems to amaze me that wherever you are you can always catch them. Mackerel are more than baitfish or a summer holiday pastime. Caught on the right tackle they can be real fun to catch as Vince found out. Mackerel get a lot of bad press. ‘Proper’ anglers don’t want the stigma of catching them or being associated with lines of holidaymakers banging out strings of feathers to catch a fish to feed the cat.  Having said that, Vince had other plans for his string of mackerel  and that was in the form of Sushi for tonights dinner along with the scallops we caught diving earlier that week

Nice bass

Yours truly enjoying left over sushi on Fortius

sushi night with all island caught fish from the previous days...
It was awesome......

More mackerel

Wavesailing action

Boy it is great when the wind blows on the weekend and especially when it blows hard. Saturday was a bit of a let down down at Vazon but Sunday was a whole different ball game.  Great to see some friends and to get some wave sailing in.
  Jas, Simon and myself wave sailed near Centers Sunday morning. Nice West side shore wind fresh F5 to strong F6 with gusts to 40 mph with a west swell pushing in.  Groin / beach had mostly intermittent lefts in the thigh to waist high range. Occasional right off the outside reef at suck ups as well. Small but ride able on a 80ltr.  Mostly sunny skies with patches of clouds today. Temp is 17 °C, the barometer is rising so sun should be on tap all day. Storm has kicked up the ocean and brought some pieces of surf with it. Not very organised but the weather is inviting even if the surf isn't exactly smooth. By mid morning the swell had picked up a notch on suck ups and started to jack up to shoulder high.  Inconsistent waves but there are pieces to be ridden if you wanted to get wet.
  The shore break was pretty decent, so you could sneak in a couple bottom turns and pretend you were at Lanes before you headed back out into the soup.  The word soon spread that the wind was blowing and it wasn't long before we were joined by the rest of the gang..
  I had a problem.  I had been sailing over powered- when the wind picked up another notch I was still on the 5.3. This is the good kind of problem though and after maxing the down and out haul I was back at it, until a nice ramp loomed up on the reef and I hit it full power into a back loop and came out the other end in a spirling spinning mess and blew the head of my sail just below the top batten.....
And so ended the sailing experience

Whoops!...Big winds down vazon and I came out in two pieces.
 Jen have you got any sticky tape.

Everybody got their fill Sunday after a good day on the water.  I can't wait for more.

Give a cat a fish

OOPS.... The small one on the left is Tucs

Cracking weather so who cares about the fishing. Glorious sunshine, clear blue skies and barely a ripple on the sea.   The bank fishing is slowing up it would appear with Turbot numbers dropping away, not yet replaced by much in the way of Brill but I'm sure it will come. Bass improving in numbers all the time but not in full swing yet. Good days and bad days on the Turbot. It is evident that the fish are moving around the banks so well worth trying one of the smaller and more obscure banks that tend not to be fished. Some good fish being caught with a double figure fish always on the cards.  Time to change the rod for some fins and get under the water to look for some flats.  I just had to 'nip' out for a 'short paddle' to chance my arm, and I succeeded on the second drift down the west coast with a little beauty of 14lb plus. Chuffed to nuts! 

Let's do lunch!

Chasing silver

Its been ages since I've written anything here. Partly because I've been busy fishing (for not much return, generally).

5pm sun rise

Yes... fishing heaven... one of those days you think.."IT cant get any better than this"
Well, the conditions were spot on, but not a sign of a fish.  Set the alarm for 4:45am. Sat bolt upright in the bed at 5:15am and wondered why the alarm didn't go off?...D'oh!.  The pick up was loaded and lunch was made the night before so just enough time for breakfast and a coffee then off to catch the tide and M.V Fortius.  Heading out in perfect conditions, Tuc, Gary and I set up with a small eel on a running ledge, the mark was Bank Du Nord Sark.  Anyway................after several hours fishing all the baits came back untouched. Then Tuc had one massive bite and the rod slammed over and back ...we waited...nothing...Then reeling in, he had that all to familiar feeling of a fish on the other end.
Something big??
A Bass??
Who knows?

And to show us how its done 

Out came the landing net to land a nice size Tub...
The sneaky snake had changed his eel for a Mackerel flapper.. And just to add salt into the wound the bugger had been using my spare rod for feathering up some mackerel,  we heard a funny noise and when I checked my rod the end eye was snapped off!
Ouch!
A repair will be done over the weekend..
Then the really exciting news, I saw 5 fins break the surface around 9 this morning. My second dolphin/porpoise encounter for the year! They were headed south and then turned east into the tide. I only saw them surfacing 3 times, 5 animals for sure, 2 smaller fin and 3 larger ones, hard to say if they were males or large females... Didn't get photo's either...

It was time to head off to another spot 2 miles north of where we were fishing in search for silver.
 We fished several drifts. Not a breath of wind in the air, the water looked very fishy I must admit. I know that I'll generally catch more when there's some movement in the water but there's something more enjoyable about fishing in calm, clear water.  After about 20 minutes, I was pleased (and a bit surprised) to see the boat alongside us pulled in a nice silver bar.  To cut the next hour or so short, that fish was the only one to show itself. As the tide began to push in, the water seemed to cloud a little and the whole thing just didn't seem so 'fishy' any more, and then Tuc was in.  I am still playing catch up here and Tucs into another one. This was all getting too much for me, so I put down the rod in a huff and picked up the camera and took some pics of the action. Now to cut along story short I'd been taking the p**s out of the captain over the last few weeks for his lack of fish catching skills and now it was pay back time. Surely it had to be my turn next to hook into a bass. On the last drift of the day  I was in and about time to!  It certainly was a tough day. It has been the same story for most of the month, we will find a fish or two and then go maybe hours without seeing one and then hit a few more in half hour.  Never mind always another day..  Well roll on July I say, lots to do and lots of fishing....   

Managed a nice 3lb'er, which did give me a great scrap for its size

Solo Session

The wind is finally back!  That was one of the longest windless stretches I've seen in a while.

Picture stolen from Matts blog

Put the dive gear away for a couple days. Fun day in the water today though. Most of the spots were surprisingly empty. All the forecast were calling for a swell of  flat to a foot and wind 4/5 . You don't always have to believe the reports, some of the best days are when the forecast looks really bad. People don't go, and if you know where to look you can have it all to yourself