Wavelength Surfing Magazine

Issue 151 December 05 Words and Photos: Tim Nunn

The first wave of the set stood up on the reef violently, the takeoff beyond vertical. It turned inside out straight into a 50 yard barrel section which briefly backed off before the whole wave horseshoed round the corner of the reef into a second long tube section with a tiny key hole at the end to allow an exit before the wave imploded onto dry coral. The next three waves do exactly the same and we’re out there.

I’m distracted briefly by a pulse in the rain on my window accompanied by a strong gust of wind. Cursing, the home movie is put on hold and a quick stroll down the road reveals the surf is ragged, it’s solid but a keen westerly is ripping it apart. Cornwall sucks at times, but hopefully a bit of chasing would get me out of this bankless county.

The goose chase is back, and after the frothing feedback of Chase One, the holders of the purse strings here at the Length have given us free range to go global. (Above: Gadge was tunnelling this day, not always making these lefts but travelling some serious distances. This shot isn’t a pretty perfect in the barrel deal but shows the reality of dealing with a deep tube as Gareth keeps his composure despite the world detonating around him.) Well maybe not quite global but certainly continental and with a five week deadline looming the potential for pushing a staff photographer’s expense account to the limit was high. Here was the rough plan; the Atlantic coastline of Europe, any British or Irish surfer that may be interested and this time instead of relying on the Wavelength Commodore 64 powered swell predicting model (that’s an old computer to you young’uns) we had a hard line into Surflines powerful LOLA swell model, this was going to be sweet.(Left: An empty righthander pushes through at a little Cornish cove with just a fisherman as witness) Having a reliable swell model at your fingertips is good, and with a new hurricane spinning out of the battered Caribbean every week there was no shortage of activity, although not quite where I had wanted it. You see I really fancied getting off our fair and varied island group, don’t get me wrong we have waves, but I just fancied getting into something solid, bombing Graviere or Coxos, but when the first chart reared its head the damn swell model was calling for most of the swell to hit South West England, what are the chances?
Swell one wasn’t strictly a full on bit of goose chasing, you see it showed up a couple of days before the deadline for 150, that meant that your trusty photographer couldn’t travel too far, as it turned out that wasn’t really necessary as this 975 stalled west of Ireland and sent in a fun little swell for North Cornwall.  Unfortunately the first day was windy. South Fistral threw up a few sections, and the usual suspects were out and about, that is: Gareth Llewellyn, Richie Mullins, Oli Adams (Below: Oli Adams on the first swell of the chase at North Fistral. The righthanders were good this day but super windy. Oli still managed to find a few sections) and Matt Capel. As the swell built the scene moved to North Fistral which had a decent if a little windy righthander. Oli managed to punt a couple but as is
always the case the best waves went down just as your trusty photographer went home for Sunday lunch, no commitment photographers these days unless it involves food, and especially roast dinners. (Right: Matty Capel is a turbo charged little fella, he seems to paddle faster, get more waves and go faster than pretty much most around him. Here he sets up for a North Fistral drag race) Anyway, the low moved in and filled giving south westerlies and a few rainy days at Salt Creek, but all goose chasers had one eye on the approaching weekend.