The west coast of Ireland delivers the goods, if you know where to look!
Photo by Paddlesurf
This weekend Paddlesurf Ireland ran the last event of their year, a competition, AGM and surf kayak skills assessment in Clare. We showed up at Spanish point on Saturday morning to find that the light offshore winds that had been forecast hadn't quite materialised; the wind was a fresh onshore, turning a potentially great wave into an extremily heavy close-out beach dump! It was also slightly chilly out, so we decided to retreat to the warmth and comfort of a coffee shop and hold the Paddlesurf Ireland AGM while we waited for the surf to improve! Since I'm not going to have any free time for helping out over the next few months and don't intend staying in Ireland after that, I decided to step down from the committee leaving Paddlesurf in the capable hands of Mick, Aisling, Richard and the rest of the committee.
After the AGM, if you looked really hard, closed one eye and squinted a little it looked like the surf had improved a bit. So we set up all the competition kit and got the show started. I was up in the first heat and found out pretty quickly that the conditions hadn't improved at all! It was one of the toughest paddle-outs we've had in competition, everyone took a few beatings from the set waves and there were quite a few swims. It would have been worth it if the waves were good but they really weren't! They were big and closed out as soon as you dropped in, which just resulted in more beatings! We held the two first round short boat heats and then paused the competition to come up with a new plan.
Thankfully, while we were getting beaten the tide was coming in, and thanks to some local knowlege we were able to move the whole circus to another break further down the coast which works well on a high tide, big swell and westerly wind. When we got there we were amazed to find a small, clean, punchy beach break with an offshore wind and perfect little close-out section for throwing air moves! It was one of the most fun waves I've ever surfed and everyone had a great time, flying along a super steep wall before aiming up to hit the lip! It was great for the beginners too, the predictable break and easy paddle out meant that everyone got loads of time on the wave, and people seemed to be paddling better and better throughout the day! Due to the coffee break in the morning and the time we lost moving locations in the middle of the day, it was nearly dark by the end of the waveski final and afterwards we stayed on the water until it got properly dark, playing chicken with a wall on the inside and the resulting rebound wave. In the end Richard won the longboat, with Aisling in second and Darragh third, Mick won the waveski, followed by Guillaume and me, and I won the short boat class, with Mick in second and Aisling in third. It's pretty unusual that I manage to push Mick into second place so happy days!
As well as the top places tho, there were great performances all around. The amount that people have improved since Club Champs towards the start of the year is phenomenal, and great to see. Some people are improving too much;Bernard Walsh even had to be disqualified to keep him from upsetting the status quo! (ask him for the full story!) There were a few new faces too; Alison and Rowan both paddled really well, and are in a great position going into next year. Looking forward to next year, the main focus is going to be the Surf Kayak World Championships in Northern Spain in July. The selection for this team is wide open, in particular for womens and juniors places since there are very few of each competing at the moment! If anyone likes the sound of a surf kayaking holiday in Spain next summer then get your ass into a surf boat and figure out what this sport is all about! It's not unheard of to start surf kayaking the winter before a worlds and then go and get pretty respectable results, I did it the last time it was held in Europe! If you get onto Paddlesurf Ireland or post up on their facebook page they'll be more than happy to help people to get involved, and even have a bunch of boats and stuff that people can have a go in if you can organise to hook up and go surfing with them sometime!
So that's about it; great crew, great surf, great craic, and the possibility of going to a world championships for anyone who gets involved in the next few months. Now get out there and find some waves, we're in swell season in one of the best areas for surf in the world, and the water is far warmer than the rivers. You don't want to miss out on that!
Congratulations and thank you to Aisling, Mick and Richard for putting together another year of great events. A hell of a lot of work goes in behind the scenes to keep it all going!
Photo by Paddlesurf
