Searching for the G-Spot

A first look at one of the heaviest waves in Europe.

November 13, 2003. Lucky for some. A rustic harbour somewhere in Northern Europe’s archipelago of islands.

It’s pre-dawn, the time of day when there is an otherworldly chill in the air that goes straight to your bones, the grey, half-light when most of the world is still sensibly snug under their duvets. The light makes everything feel old, especially here, in a land full of ghosts, myths and suffering.

A sea mist hangs heavily in the air just to add to the gothic effect. The mossy stonework of the old harbour and slipway was hewn by hand, centuries ago; and now the sea is no longer the source of life and work it once was the structure has fallen into disrepair. Slime coats the smooth slipway rocks dipping gently into a calm pool of water, a tiny corner of sea protected by what’s left of the primitive harbour wall, it is a calm that is not reflected in the open ocean.

Good words to describe open ocean conditions would be: maelstrom, malevolent and just a bit mad.

A long range swell of brutal aspect is battering the Northern Isles, further south, in the cosy confines of France, Spain and Portugal, classic waves are being surfed as the lines pour in, it’s the best swell of the year, probably, but up here, up here in the cold and the damp, it’s just spooky.

The malachite-green Atlantic is in the kind of psychotic mood that took many an unfortunate sailor to his cold, lonely and unpleasant end; many of them in these very waters.

Safe harbours and bays are non-existent along this forgotten coast; and when a storm came up the only thing welcoming a ship was a lot of pointy rocks. For the few survivors that made it to shore they were rewarded with an unsympathetic club to the head or a noose.

So, you’ve got to wonder what we are doing here, especially considering the three of us are dancing around like twats trying to put on our thick wetsuits without letting any flesh touch the freezing ground.

It’s such an unwelcoming environment, nobody in their right mind would want to be out and about at this hour, in this place, especially when the intention is to get into the very ocean that’s looking so damn nasty … and cold, I know science will say you can’t see cold but the North Atlantic has a quality that just radiates a feeling of chill and foreboding. Haunted is not a word I would use but it fits well.

The plan, as it is, is for the three of us, Gabe, Richy Fitz and myself to hop on their jet ski and pootle out to a never before surfed reef. Well, no. That’s a lie. It’s been surfed before, but never at this size and not on the main peak, so in essence it is a different wave, but I digress.

As plans go it’s simple and to the point.

The hydro-jet powered boy-toy is supposedly a three man ski; ergo three men can ride it.

There is probably some small print in the manual somewhere that defines a man as being something along the lines of Gabe: lean, not too chunky and weighing something shy of twelve-stone. Richy and I are more Neanderthal, more in the likes a pint, would probably be quite handy on a rugby pitch or doing heavy manual labour mould. Good country stock. Neither of us surf a 6’2” toothpick, put it that way. Sinking is an immediate cause for concern. They assure me it’ll be fine.

Breaking down is not an issue either. The ski hasn’t broken down and stranded either of them miles out at sea for a good week now, and it’s comforting to know that in the event of a problem no-one will see us, because we will be in the arse end of nowhere, a good few clicks offshore, in poor visibility. Not that the lifeboat covering this stretch could get out of its home port anyhow; due to the closeouts crunching across the deepwater reefs that fringe that town.

As the sun breaks the horizon we motor slowly out to sea from our cleft in the cliffs, picking our way between the mussel-encrusted skerries and reefs that rarely get tickled by swell. The sun is up but it’s not out, the only way we can tell its up is because it’s gone eight o’clock and the deathly cold, grey half-light has transformed slightly to a deathly cold, grey … light.

Once clear of the coast we get up to speed and then discover the joys of wind-chill and spray.

The two combined is an experience akin to having thousands of tiny ice daggers shot into your face at 30 miles an hour.

It’s impossible to keep your eyes open. It must have been a weird sight to see; (for anyone up at that hour, in possession of a good telescope, with good hand to eye coordination) a ski disappearing off into the distance at speed, piloted by a driver with two passengers that appeared to be cowering on the rear, their faces buried in the back of the person in front. As if they didn’t want to see where they were going.

Half an hour of punishment later we arrive at our destination and the ocean has gone flat. We couldn’t check the wave from land as to do so would have meant an hour round trip in the van and would have taken too long, we knew the swell was bombing and we knew there was no wind.

So it was a tad perplexing to arrive at this most exposed of reefs to see nothing, no tell-tale signs of whitewater, or foam from a recent set, nothing.

Outer reefs have a rhythm of their own, distinct from normal near shore beaches and reefs, the scale is bigger, the water deeper, the vibe more menacing.

Being a long way out makes it difficult to locate your self, finding a line-up is hard.

We circle for five minutes, waiting. Hoping that this bruiser of a swell hasn’t shat itself and died.

A mile or so out past the reef something stirs, it’s hard to tell how big, collective fingers are crossed as the broad swell line begins to zero in on our chosen field of battle. It licks the reef and starts to take shape, looks promising, bending in nicely, perfectly clean and well overhead and then…

…

A stunned silence.

We are in awe.

The reverential hush is broken by the cannon shot announcing the violent exhalation of spit from the beastly keg of a barrel.

‘It’s got potential,’ says one wag.

The other waves in the set confirm our hopes: it is off its bloody tits.

Lead weighted tow-boards, a tow-rope, helmet, lifejackets, and the like, are swiftly deployed and a photographer pitched into the brine to fend for himself.

As expected it’s fecking freezing.

Richy is driving and Gabe surfing, they disappear out of sight, off towards the horizon and Greenland. I’m left to ponder the important questions in life, like: Why aren’t there Great White sharks here when the water is the same temperature in Northern California? And just what is a Bronze Whaler?

Whatever it is, one was caught over this reef and I resolve to hope they are friendly.

Having covered the unknown terror I move onto the known.

Right then, which direction is the current pulling me? In towards the peak, good. Just what I didn’t want, as I’m not sure I’m really feeling fit enough to get clobbered by a six-wave set of square, eight-foot death-boxes with two-foot thick lips.

It’s at times like this when you are sat out in a cold, dark ocean all by yourself, on the edge of an unknown reef, with waves that are firmly outside your comfort zone, that the frailty of the human body and it’s cursed inability to operate satisfactorily underwater for very long becomes painfully obvious.

But, anyway.

Richy and Gabe trundle back into sight, saving me the trouble of mentally sharting myself to death. They come in from behind the peak, sizing things up, it’s wrong, this wave’s too small and it chunders itself nearly dry on the peak before a jolly little wall wraps off down a considerable length of reef. They buzz past me as they loop out for another run.

‘Everything alright over here?’ they say in chorus.

‘Oh yes, all tickety-boo here,’ I lie, immediately cursing my murderous use of the English language.

The next set is bigger, their line is good, Gabe lets go and enters the unknown.

I start shooting, a frame every second or so, not using the motor-drive for fear of running out of film. Fifteen shots, and somewhere in the region of ten seconds, later the G-Man comes out of the barrel.

Not bad for a first sniff.

The next hour or so was one of the most memorable of my life, surfing or otherwise. Gabe, and then Richy, danced on the edge of abyss, pulling into impossible barrels and coming out of pretty much all of them.

Each set was subtly different, all in the angle I guess, some were big on the peak and got smaller along the line, and others were growers. Richy caught the most memorable of these; as it broke so big and wide that I had to scarper as fast as my 6’6” and little swim fin laden legs could propel me, whilst simultaneously trying to shoot a few frames, shit myself and make my peace with the ancestors. All the while he hot-dogged the outside wall before committing himself over a ledge of doom and into the barrel of his life.

The word barrel doesn’t really do these waves justice. I don’t think a sufficiently powerful word exists to describe them.

An hour later and we are back on the ski, frozen, but stoked beyond belief. Headed back to the slipway; as if on cue the wind had come up and the swell died, as if it had decided we were done. Time to clock out and go for a very welcome second breakfast.

I cursed my lack of headgear the whole way back, with the strong wind head-on the tiny ice dagger assault was doubly vigorous, I was so jealous of Richie’s twat cap and Gabe’s helmet that mutiny, or piracy, was a serious consideration.

As we got back on terra firma and I started the dance to take off my wetty it’s only then that I remembered it has a really warm, snug, built-in hood. This is the suit I wore when I swam in the Arctic last year after all.

‘I did wonder why you didn’t put it up,’ said Gabe.