Wait & wish

Monday 6th Jan Hercules                                                  Saturday 1st Feb take Two

 

Good day to all of you creatures of briny interests! It's a decidedly overcast day here in the Channel Islands with the temperature's billowing in at 8 Celsius and no wind as yet.  After the psycho storms of late, this morning things suddenly went quiet, but not for long as another storm is developing out in the Atlantic just in time for the weekend and it is sure to trigger another round of Wave Sailing VS Mother Nature. The met office said something about a 'disturbed sou'westerly airstream' and 'gale force winds' for Friday and Saturday, with the forecast looking this good we are hoping for a big one. Big tides are not uncommon around here (10.1 on Saturday), but with the combination of the wind behind it we could get a battering. 
 With the Swell and wind from the recent lows fading, it is soon replaced by a new west swell so here's a few pics of wind and swells of past just to get in the mood for the next session.

 

 

Fingers crossed the isobars hold up. Roll on another SW storm so we can get in the waves again..

 
 

Double Dip



 There has been a series of storms over the last month, but fortunately, there are weather opportunity windows, that obsessed divers must take advantage of. With a small break in the wind on Saturday morning the weather was looking ok, in spite of a new wind storm headed our way for the afternoon. Water was pretty flat, no whitecaps, nor much of a swell. The surface water was fairly greenish blue, considering all the storms and spring tides we have been experiencing recently. And it was just a nice sunny morning for a quick one tank dip in the pool.
  Under water was a stark contrast to the conditions top side. Poor vis, about 2mtrs max. (Ok... 2mtrs was an over statement it was more like 10cm) and with me causing the occasional silt out dragging my scallop bag it brought it down to thick farmhouse vegetable soup. Jen declined my offer when I got home to scrape the plankton and krill from my dive gear to make a nice tasty soup for lunch. By the time I had washed my kit  I was pleasantly surprised to see the trees shaking as the day progressed. Managed to make it to Vazon  

early afternoon.  The wind over the last 24hrs has been really weird. From the South, then the West in the afternoon and blowing its tits off over night, then back to South Sunday morning.....  Just couldn't resist a few runs on the pond with a SSW. Only about 20 knots of wind. It was nice to do a double dip and get wet again. Swell was tiny but seemed to pick up mid session a wee bit. Wind was kinda weird and gusty. It would swing from SW at one end of the beach to W at the other, people were pointing all over the place. It was too onshore for any real attempts at getting rides. Lots of short period swell, which made for some good jumping going out. Rain clouds on the horizon soon moved in and the rain came in a series of massive squalls and saturated the place increasing the wind and turning it Westerly sailed around over powered for about 25 minutes. Got a couple of good jumps and some loops. Then it just started to get silly which killed the session. And that was it.   



934MB Atlantic Low

The Hype behind the “Black Monday” swell which was generated by a 934mb Atlantic low pressure named Hercules, was incredible. News crews and media both inside and out of the surfing world were in a frenzy in the build up to the predicted huge surf. Hercules the storm has been traveling up and down the Atlantic freezing the tits off 50 American states and delivering hell to the European coast producing the biggest waves ever surfed in Europe. The North Atlantic storm made landfall on Monday morning 6th January .This week brought the biggest swell of the season.  It could turn out to be the biggest swell of the year I suppose.  Waves are all over the place. Mother Nature is speaking, loud and clear.   Excitement is in the air.  Here's a few shots taken from various wave breaks around Guernsey on that day...  (It’s funny, but waves never seem to look as big in photos.)

Hercules has been traveling up and down the Atlantic freezing the tits off 50 American states and delivering hell and high earth to the European coasts.
Read more at http://surfeurope.mpora.com/features/news/hercules-takes-on-the-canary-islands-more-mad-footage.html#tiwOZWQzG1uiMQfg.99

Look who's knocking at the door

What can I say.
It's been a great two weeks of sailing with some great conditions here in Guernsey.

Today and all last week was about as good as Vazon gets. Nice lined up swell and a solid South wind even the waves had a bit of punch. On the right wave the riding was great. Great conditions to tune into my new Fanatic Tri. Excellent session. Nicely powered on the 5.2 today and great DTL riding on some pretty clean, peaky faces.

Lost count of how many waves I caught - they just seemed to be there on every run in. Had good speed off the bottom and got some awesome smacks, plus plenty of too-late top turns resulting in some wild tail slides around to 180 degrees, needless to say most weren't recovered! 

Looks like more wind and waves on the way