Dream Tour Part 2 - A Day of Two Halves

As soon as the surf kayak British Open was cancelled last weekend due to the dismal surf forecast, the focus turned to the upcoming Irish Open in Easky. Hoping that the west coast was getting more surf than the north, I headed for Bundoran and set up camp there for a few days to get some solid training done before moving on to Easky. The move paid off and I was treated to a fresh swell in Tullan on Sunday, with waves approaching head and a half high and heavy enough that getting caught in front of them in a boat really wasn't fun! Watching the boardies pulling into closeout cover ups really kicked off the excitement for the next leg of my travels, which I'll go into more detail about sometime soon! The swell slowly dropped over the next few days and I had lots of great sessions; all at Tullan with a chilled out crowd of French and German travelling surfers. By Wednesday it was small enough and I was tired enough that it was time to take some time off, do a bit of a tour around the North West coast and slowly start making my way down to Easky.

The north coast of Donegal is stunning, and the weather on Wednesday showed it off at it's best! 

I arrived in Easky on Thursday evening, with just enough of a wave on the reef make it worth getting in for a quick session. The waves were less than two feet but nice and fast and steep, and myself and Aisling Griffin surfed into the night hoping to get a head start on the crowd that we expected would be on the water in the morning. Unfortunately though, not for the first time on this trip, the waves decided not to play ball. We woke up on Friday to find Easky as flat as a pancake, and were forced to travel to Tullan and fight for 2ft waves with the other 40 people who ended up in the same situation.

Beautiful? Yes. Surfable? Definitely not!

After this we weren't very hopeful that we would have waves at Easky for the competition the next day. Various alternative venues were discussed and a 7.20 meeting time was announced to give us time to move the whole circus if needed. It was pitch black out when we arrived at Easky on Saturday but pretty soon a bit of light started to appear in the sky and it was clear that there were small but contestable waves for us to play with. Unfortunately the wind was strong and blowing the complete wrong direction for Easky, blowing a horrible side chop into the wave and making it incredibly difficult to pick out a decent wave and link a couple of turns on it. I came off the water after the first round IC heat expecting a last place finish after blowing a bunch of take offs and not really putting together any decent rides, but it turned out that everyone else was struggling just as much out there and I had made it through in first place. I also made it through my first round HP heat which meant I could change out of the wet gear and shelter from the weather while waiting for the semis and finals in the afternoon.

These are the waves you spend hours in the office dreaming about. Long, rippable walls with nobody else out! Photo by Paddlesurf Ireland. 

After a couple of hours wearing as much clothes as I possibly could and watching people struggling in fairly big but downright dirty surf, things slowly started to change for the better. As if our prayers were being answered, over the course of an hour or two the rain stopped, the wind dropped and turned southerly, and the sun started to show a face through the clouds that had remained unbroken all morning! The chop that had been destroying any chance  of a good wave slowly disappeared, and the gentle offshore breeze caused the waves to stand up and take on  that classic Easky shape. All of a sudden it was game on for the finals, and I got more and more excited as I watched the juniors, masters and waveskis ripping on picture perfect waves!

Pushing the Paddlesurf Ireland Equinox nice and high into the lip of one of the set waves.

The finals were what all surf kayak competitions should be like. Shredding perfect waves in the sunshine with good friends around you and and an enthusiastic crowd on the shore loudly encouraging all of the competitors to surf harder and harder! In conditions like that it's impossible not to have fun, the competition takes second stage as you get to surf incredible waves with only three other people on the water, getting a front row seat to watch some amazing surfing and using that as motivation to up your own game. After a couple of great heats in the semis and finals, the arms were running out of juice and by the end of the HP final the mind was starting to wander towards the well deserved bottle of beer waiting in car park!

Hitting the lip on the last section, slightly too close for comfort to Johnny McBride! Photo by Paddlesurf Ireland. 

Coming off the water I had no idea what to expect results wise. Everyone had caught some amazing waves and surfed them beautifully, and from what I had seen the judges must have had a tough time picking between them. Special mention has to go to Pablo Airways from France, waveskiier extraordinaire who hopped into a kayak for the first time to see what it was like. He opened my mind as to what's possible in a boat and has really inspired me to try to push my own surfing up to another level. In the end, huge congratulations are due to Andy McClelland and Matthew Lamont for taking first place in IC and HP respectively. I came away with third place in both categories, not quite equal to last year's haul of double firsts but a respectable result none the less! I don't think any competitor is ever totally happy with their own performance but at the same time I definitely surfed better than I could when I left on this road trip a couple of weeks ago, which at the end of the day is what this whole road trip is all about!

Happy out collecting the silverware at the end of the day! 

The next stop on this tour (check out #dreamtour posts by keyes_92 on Instagram if you like landscape and sunset photos!) is Cranafest next weekend. I'm going to be teaching level 2/3 whitewater skills for the weekend so that's you and if you want to hear more of what I have to say then you know what to do! Most of the country's top instructors and competitors will be there so if you haven't got your tickets yet get booking, it's going to be epic! If you're not familiar with the event go and check out the website, there's something for everyone over the course of the weekend, regardless of age or kayaking ability!