The last time I surfed the waves off Scarborough Beach it was in Yorkshire back in the UK. I was surfing in the North Sea on a swell generated in the Arctic, and there was half a foot of snow on the ground!
Apart from being a tad chilly there were clean lines of waves and I had a great session. However having surfed for over an hour in water which was about 3C, with snow being blown horizontally across the bay throughout, taking my leg out of my wetsuit after the session to put my bare foot down into a snow drift brought a whole new definition to the word cold!
This Scarborough however is on the Indian Ocean coast on the west of Australia and a short drive from Perth where I am staying, so I suspected it would be a great deal warmer.
Everybosy else is in full wetsuits but I have limited my travel bags for the next few weeks so only have my shorty wetsuit, which was fine because it is still warmer here than it ever gets in the UK. The wind is everything when you are in the water though and it was howling onshore, and because the sea bed drops away quite sharply it meant the waves here were largely just dumping on the shore.
I knew it wasn’t going to be a great session but paddled out in front of this fantastic amphitheatre they have built on the shore because I wanted to bag a different ocean on my travels and settle my nerves about being in the water in an area known for its angry fish.
My board was a nightmare to get past the breakers because it is so bouyant and I got hammered on the way out. I did this a few times after each of the take offs, which were immediately followed by getting oblitorated by the dumping waves that I had caught but didn’t stay in long.
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