COLD WATER WAVES
Do snow-capped mountains and frosty jagged shorelines hint at surfing to you, or more like a murder mystery set in Alaska? To some surfers these places not only suggest surfing, they scream it.
Some years ago, I spent a few winter months surfing on the Channel Islands between England and France, home to some of the largest tides in the world. An average surf was no more than an hour with only a few waves—never a three-hour super session with a takeaway tan. One afternoon, on my daily surf check, the conditions looked better than I’d anticipated. Four foot, glassy and the sun was actually shining. I was almost ready, half contorted into my 5 mm wetsuit when I realised I’d forgotten my gloves. I paddled out, nabbed a couple of pristine offshore walls and ignored my hands that were exposed to the biting conditions. There were some fun little cover-ups, but as the feelings in my fingers disappeared, so did
