Cold Shoals

In a sea of daily content it’s becoming increasingly easy to be seduced into believing that the best waves only happen on far-offshores or around specific climatic events like the much fabled 50 year storm in the cult-classic Point Break.

- JOE THWAITES

For most, well at least here in the UK, we get our fix at the week-ends, usually heading to our local beach break with every other type of board slider; shoot the shit, catch a few and stoke babble over a post-shred cold one or bag of chips. While this is fine at the beginning of most peoples’ journey into SUP surfing and certainly ticks off that all important social element, there are days when the beach just can’t handle the size, the wind is blowing the wrong way or there’s that many people in the water you can’t get a decent wave.

It’s easy to believe that our froth levels will be restored by returning home and booking a flight to a reliable wave mecca for endless sunny waves, but even SUP favourites like Majanicho in Fuerteventura and Immesouanne in Morocco are now mobbed with riders of all abilities so unless you go at dawn or dusk, empty and reliable peeling waves are still largely confined to historic folklore.

Perhaps our frustration at home just comes down to pure laziness or a safety in numbers mentality? It’s far too easy to go to your local surf central and accept the prevailing conditions and number of water users but what’s available in the next bay or five to ten miles further up or down the coast? The truth is if you don’t go, you won’t know!