Around The World In 80 Waves

Japan is about twice as big as the British Isles, however most of it is covered in dense forest. This makes the cities incredibly densely populated, which results in things being piled on top of one another because there isn’t enough land to go around.

I am going to be here for the next 10 days and as usual will have nowhere near long enough to do the country justice. I’m hoping to at least get a flavour of life whilst here, as well as a couple of waves too.

I arrive at Tokyo first thing in the morning and straight away get a reality check about how big the language barrier will be here.

There are a few signs which explain things using the Latin alphabet, but most are in Japanese character form. The problem I have is that I have no idea what the signs might actually be for. E.g. Are they telling me the name of a street, that there is a sale on at a furniture shop or perhaps that this is an emergency exit?

I do manage to find my way from Narita airport into the centre of Tokyo, but due to my early arrival in the country I roll into town right in the middle of the morning rush hour.

I am already massively confused by everything here, but it is at least tiring and at worst painful trying to cross the city to my hostel in the morning rush hour. If you have ever seen images of the Tokyo underground I’m sure you will understand especially because I was carrying an 8’0″ surfboard as well as the rest of my baggage!

Japan has always been a sea faring nation and sea food still constitutes a huge portion of the people’s diet here.

There are several famous waves here. None more so than this picture by Katsushika Hokusai. I am looking forward to getting a very different slant on surf culture during my short stay here.

Of course the Japanese wave that everybody will know about was the tsunami which hit the east coast of the islands on 11th March 2011 following a massive earthquake off the coast.

The earthquake moved Honshu, which is the main island of Japan, 8 feet eastwards and shifted the Earth on its axis by approximately 15 cm. The resulting waves reached heights of up to 133 feet which travelled as far as 6 miles inland. 

Nearly 16,000 people were killed and another 2,500 are still listed as missing. 130,000 buildings totally collapsed, with a further 1,000,000 being badly damaged. It also caused severe structural damage to roads and railways as well as fires in many areas, and caused a dam to collapse. Not to forget the ongoing issues at Fukushima. I can’t really add anything jolly to brighten these statistics I’m afraid. Nor should I. 

Since arriving into this global centre of the surfing universe back in June I have seen more wildlife than Crocodile Dundee.

I have witnessed the British Lions get their first series win in sixteen years and the England and Wales Cricket Team retain The Ashes. Given the sporting powerhouse that Australia is, I couldn’t have timed that better if I tried

I have managed to increase the number of breaks I have surfed from 67 to 127 breaks in the last three and a half months, but will have barely scratched the surface of the number of waves that are available here.

However the sun has come down on my opportunity to bag any more though and I must pack up and leave the English speaking world for the last time until I get back to the UK.

Some last minute satellite navigation issues when my phone felt it best that my desired route should resemble a figure of eight as opposed to a straight line, didn’t stop me dropping off my hire car and getting to the airport on time.

Once there I am also amazed that Qantas don’t charge me a thing for my surfboard going all the way to Japan. I am speechless! It might actually be the first airline on this trip to treat me like they would like more of my business.

Sadly this airline highlight is somewhat tarnished because of a really annoying repetitive beeping for the first two hours of my flight, and me also being unable to drown it out because the sound on my entertainment unit being broken. Grrrr! 

It is an overnight flight though and before I know it I am looking out the window at the sun coming up over the Land of the Rising Sun.

The time has come for me to leave Australia for the last time, so I need to say a big thank you to Adam, Rossana, Romy, Spyda and Lily who have looked after, sheltered, fed and tolerated me since this particular strung out surfer arrived on their shores back in June still devastated from the loss of his surfboard.

Their house has really felt like a home from home and has allowed me to get back in the groove of my trip more than once. I know it wont be the last time I see them though, but guess that Spyda (who appropriately has a ball in his mouth in this shot) will have to find somebody else to play fetch with for the foreseeable future.

I’m going to miss you all.

🙁

A quick note to send lots of love to my father who has been in the wars once more.

He really hasn’t had any luck lately so I hope he is feeling better soon.

XXX

The London Surf Film Festival is currently running back in the UK, and friend of mine has produced a movie for the short film category. She has captured some great footage of the surf in Madeira, which picks up fantastic waves in the middle of the North Atlantic.

The prize for the category will be won by viewer votes, so please take a look for yourselves at Nell’s movie, and vote for the film if you can here.

After a day off I have arranged another dawn raid with Chris to try and bag one more of the northern beaches before I leave Australia.

I am waiting outside his door on a Monday morning at 5.30 am with the engine running. the wheels are soon rolling northwards up to Long Reef which is at the north end of the same bay as Dee Why.

Sadly the waves have dropped considerably from the previous day which I had opted to utilise for trip administration as well as allowing myself some rest after surfing five different beaches and having gone sailing in the previous two days.

We have made the trip and there are at least waves so we paddle out anyway just after the sun comes up over the eastern horizon.

It is before 6 am and there are already at least fifty surfers in the water up and down the bay, but we find a little peak which isn’t too busy and make the most of the fun waves which are on offer.

It was an amusing session, but tinged with a bit of sadness because it is my last one with Chris, who you see here getting ready for a day in the office after we had got out. It has been great having a surf buddy in the water, and from here all the way back home I am likely to be going solo again, or at best surfing with strangers.e make his ferry into Sydney with ease and even have time for a McBreakfast before saying farewell.

Newport beach is where Rossana and Adam’s legal practise is based. There is a beautiful beach there that Chris and I drove to after getting off the sailing boat, although the speed with which we tried to get there before the sun went down may well have ended with us being in front of a magistrate!

I wasn’t at all convinced we would be in time to make the rally driving worthwhile, but take my hat off to Chris who had convinced me otherwise.

I love a manic surf trip. It gets the blood pumping like it used to when I first started going to the beach in search of waves.

As you can see night was already well on its way as we pulled up in the car park. The waves were very small but consistently coming through so we didn’t think twice before getting into our wetsuits and running down the sand. I wouldn’t say this was an all time legendary surf trip but we did catch plenty of little rides each, with the bay to ourselves.

That was apart from an inept young lad who was already on the water and decided he wanted to come and play with us, but just kept getting in our way. A few choice words after one incident saw him leave the water soon after.

We only caught a few more of the one foot crumbling waves before getting out ourselves. It was as dark as you see here in the car park, and I am willing to play shark bait only when the surf conditions are above certain thresholds. After drying off we caught up with Rachel and Stuart in the pub in Mosman for victory beers after a fantastic day.

Chris has arranged to go sailing after his visit to the tax man on Saturday afternoon and is kind enough to ask me if I would like to join him on the boat.

We meet up with his wife Rachel and the owner of the boat called Stuart, before driving over to Pittwater, which is a huge inlet north of Sydney named after a former Prime Minister of the UK. 

The boat is a 28 foot Daydream called Jamboree and I am delighted to be invited on board because I have never been out on the sea under sail, and it is for that reason I am claiming this wave even if I wasn’t actually surfing here.

I actually think sailing is a natural progression for surfers, who still wish to enjoy playing with the ocean once the ravages of time do not necessarily allow them to paddle out into all the waves they once did.

It is a very windy day and after getting clear of all the other boats moored near by we set sail for Barrenjoey headland which is the far end of the peninsular past Palm Beach.

As we get close we notice that a small fire seems to have started on the headland, which reminds me of the Great Orme back in Llandudno. Due to its location on the headland it sadly can only have been started as a result of human negligence such as a tossed cigarette butt or glass bottle.

Straight away I am on to the emergency services to alarm them about the fire, because you should never assume that somebody else has rang, but the wind quickly gets hold of it and a bush fire is quickly engulfing all the tinder dry plants and trees there.

In no time at all all the area that you can see behind Alf Stewart, a grumpy local resident, is ablaze and there is really nothing the local fire fighting services can do other than try to save the historic lighthouse on the top of the headland.

To try and save the buildings a squadron of helicopters flies over the blaze dropping water from buckets they have filled. We couldn’t work out why they didn’t use sea water adjacent to the headland but can only assume it was to protect the animal and plants there. However this just meant that whilst they flew off to a freshwater reservoir or something similar, the blaze went unchecked for huge stretches of time, and anything there would have been burnt to a crisp anyway.

Watching all of this was exciting enough, but to add to the script for today we were joined on the water in our grandstand view of proceedings by a pod of dolphins swimming around the boat. Annoyingly though I still have no pictures to demonstrate another close call with these animals! They kept disappearing.

Once the fire was under control we set sail back for the mooring near Church Point and you can see Admiral Simmons here displaying fine mastery of the row boat to ferry everybody else back to shore.

As first sailing experiences go it was an amazing afternoon and sadly I suspect will be hard to match up to on any subsequent voyages. Once on dry land Chris persuades me that there is still a chance for another wave even if there is barely any light left in the day.

After a day of rest Chris convinces me to make another early start in search of waves on saturday morning. We pick up another ex-pat surfer Ben who I enjoyed many waves with back in the UK and set of on a wave safari.

Ben, Chris and I check out a number of different breaks that I haven’t seen before but decide to opt for the waves at Dee Why. You can see all three of us in the line up here.

I had actually surfed here before, but staggeringly forgot to report that I had visited this break back in July. Only discovering that when I was about to report on returning there. It must have got lost in a previous backlog, so I am hoping there are not any more.

The surf is a bit all over the place but certainly the best we saw along the coast.

It doesn’t take me long until I have dropped into a few, and all the time in the water am enjoying the banter between Chris and Ben.

The waves are about head high and there are loads of people in the water, but I certainly manage to get my share of waves while we are here, including one fantastic right which I manage to slalom my way to the shore picking a workable line through the surfer soup. 

We are in the water for a few hours and having loads of fun, but as ever fatigue or another appointment means we have to get out.

Chris has a visit scheduled with the tax man here in Dee Why so we get out and enjoy a coffee and a bite to eat whilst enjoying the Australian wildlife walking along the sea front.

I already knew it but this session confirms that you cant beat surfing with your friends.

My smile says why.