Feelin' the chill!
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Feeling the chill!
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It was a cold and wet December day, when my feet touched the sand at
Sendai Shinko.
The sand was blanketed white with fresh snow, the sky grey, the waves
perfect, and the line up empty. It should have been a perfect setup, the
kind of day a surfer dreams of, but I could barely muster up the
enthusiasm to strap on my leash. That December day was last year, it’s
fresh in my mind now as the first snows are starting to fall on the
mountains around Sendai. Oh well, here we go again
Being an Australian, growing up in Queensland, I have never had to
think about cold. Cold water surfing prior to Japan was wearing a 3mm
full suit in winter for the early session for comfort rather than necessity.
To say I loath the cold would be an understatement, but there is
something to be said for it, and that’s what this article is about.
Anybody can keep stoked on surfing in the tropics, it’s easy. You wake p
in the morning in your boardies, scratch your self grab a drink and head
to the beach to check the swell. If it’s good you run in paddle out and
surf until you get sick of it. If it’s flat, you feel bummed, but figure a
swim will probably help you shake of the sleep and get the day
underway, like I said, easy. Surfing in a snow covered winter is a whole
other story. Your alarm rings, you wake up, it’s dark, and your face is
cold. You pull the blanket over your head and tell yourself it’s just a bad
dream, eventually one of your buddies who has just gone through the
same nightmare, calls you up and tells you to get you ass out of bed.
The nightmare continues, you get your wetty out of the bathtub, which is
still wet, but now icy cold and stuff it into a bag, fill up a tank with
steaming hot water pull on three to four layers of clothes and head out
the door to scrape the ice and snow off of the car; it’s still dark by the
way.
Once at the beach, the real challenge begins, standing on either ice or
snow, with winds pouring off of the snow capped mountains around
50km away, you have to somehow get off you three to four layers and put
on your icy cold wet wetty, boots, gloves and hood. Then walk through
ankle to knee deep snow down to the shore, and begin the paddle out.
Unlike paddling in summer paddling in winter is like trying to swim
while wrapped in a blanket, with oven mitts on. All this isn’t too bad
compared to the joys of taking a duck dive under a 2 degree Celsius wall
of water, which brings an instant ice cream headache.
While sitting in the line off shore wind blows against your wet hair, if
you are like me and cannot stand the claustrophobic feel of a hood while
you wait for waves, I only pull my hood up when it hurts to leave it down.
The 5mm wet suit feels like an iron suit, with the boots and gloves on I
feel like G.I Surfer, my body locked into a permanent posture rigid all
movement forced, but then it happens, then one event which seems to
make all the misery disappear in an instant, the peak approaches.
As you paddle for the wave, icy water bounces off the nose of your board
and stings your face and eyes, almost blind you feel for the moment
when you know you've got the wave, be it a head high wave or double
over the rush is the same, rather than the fear of a pounding, which is
usually measured by the size and force of the wave, in these conditions
it's the cold that rattles you, any wipeout is going to suck. One such
wipeout held me down deep for two waves, I climbed up to my board
trying to keep conscious and proceeded to throw up.
Your feet hit the deck and you're off, cold gone, though you feel as weak
as a kitten and a turn or two can leave you out of breath, but the stoke is
the same. Due to cold and fatigue a winter surf usually is under one
hour, that when the joints stop bending and the feet are numb, you
stumble out of the water and brave the wind on the walk back to the car,
once there you begin to strip off the layers of rubber, daunting task as
your extremities are totally numb, one time my hands were so numb that
as I pulled off my glove my wedding ring came off and I didn't feel it,
winter surfing nearly cost me my marriage.
Back in the car the heater blasting, toes completely numb, you begin
driving home smiling ear to ear, you've made it, nature at it's worst and
you were up to the challenge. You truly are a surf warrior!
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