So, this Dream Tour rubbish, what's the craic? A couple of weeks in north west Ireland, what's the big deal? It is cool and everything, but not exactly exotic? I would argue that the west coast of Ireland is what the best dreams are made of, but that's slightly beside the point! The point is that around the age of twelve, before I ever got involved in kayaking and shortly after joining the Limerick Scout Group which kicked off all this outdoor malarkey for me in the first place, I had the opportunity to try out a friend's surfboard in Lahinch. I had spent years bodyboarding on family holidays to west Cork, loving the waves and the water but always feeling a little bit jealous of the guys out back on the surf boards. So finally getting a go on a board was a big deal! I vividly remember the feeling of flying along in front of the whitewater that first time I stood up, and totally falling in love with a new sport, and indeed a new way of life! Over the next couple of years the hurling, football and rugby that I was playing at the time fell by the wayside, the Sunday Game lost out to surf movies and the walls of my room became plastered in photos of people tucking in to emerald green barrels in remote corners of the world.
Ireland's west coast on fire a few weeks ago. It's definitely the stuff dreams are made of but I feel like travelling slightly further afield and hopefully finding some warmer water to play in!
Over the next couple of years I surfed as often as I could get a lift to the beach, built boards for myself in the back garden, and dreamed up various plans for surfing perfect waves in warm water. Eventually I got involved in kayaking which totally took over from surfing when I started building up for my first international surf kayak competitions, but the dreams of surfing perfect waves were still tucked away in a corner of my brain somewhere. Those are the dreams that this 'Dream Tour' is about! One of the more achievable ones is the classic Eurosurf road trip down west coast of France and into Spain and Portugal, surfing on every working peak along the way. Luckily, Mark Scanlon and Adam McEvoy happen to be free at the moment and up for the same kind of antics that I am, so on the 10th of November we're loading up Adam's Fiesta with surfing and camping gear and catching a ferry to France! Fingers crossed we'll score some epic surf as the north Atlantic winter starts churning out swell, and the weather will be a whole lot warmer than Ireland at this time of year! The eventual target of this road trip is somewhere near Lagos in Portugal, where we hope to stay for a short while and catch some consistent surf while minimising the spend on petrol. The whole plan is pretty flexible though, and who really knows where we'll end up! Keep an eye on this blog and follow keyes_92 on Instagram to keep up to date with progress, at the very least I'm sure we'll come home with some funny stories to tell!
The time since Cranafest hasn't exactly been spent relaxing! I've been surfing almost every day, did a club trip to Donegal, climbed Ben Bulben and did a multi-day sea kayaking expedition in Clare, where we saw whales, dolphins, porpoises and seals pretty much simultaneously!
"After Portugal" is a pretty distant thought at the moment. There are a couple of ideas floating around, including kayaking in Morocco in spring, snowboarding in Norway or possibly passing the whole winter in Portugal, picking up a job and relaxing in the sunshine! Only time will tell, if anyone hears of any jobs going that involve working on or around boats, or outdoor brands looking for people to test out kit it would be great to hear of them! Regardless of what happens in the meantime though, next summer will hopefully be spent surf kayaking in Ireland, preparing for the world Championships in Northern Ireland in October. My thinking is that the breaks are quiet, will be relatively consistent and I can surf spots which are similar to the competition sites in Portrush, so after a summer preparing I should be set up to perform pretty well up there! The next post here will contain the secret to fitting three guys, surfing gear, camping gear and a bunch of other toys in to the back of a Ford Fiesta... it should be pretty entertaining; stay tuned!
