I was born by the sea. The furthest I have ever lived from the sea is 65kms (as the crow flies). Living on an island, that isn’t too hard.
When that island is in the North Atlantic, then being IN the sea isn’t always a pleasant experience. I’ve said before in these blogs that I like my warmth. The North Atlantic is not warm – by any stretch of the imagination.
There is a certain place on the north coast of Northern Ireland that I feel I can call home. Here, there is nothing between you and Iceland but the North Atlantic Ocean. All that melting glacial ice water and its northern latitude makes the sea cold!
The guys from “my” beach are surfers – including the world renowned Al Mennie, oh and my brother and his mates!
In the days before mobile phones, there used to be a tap on the window and a whisper;
“Andy. Surf’s up”
The door would bang, the garage door would roll up, followed by the crunch of gravel as my brother headed out to wash out his sinuses with salt water! It was cool. They were cool. It all was cool, including the water!
Trying to piggyback that coolness, I used to have a photo in my room at Uni. The boys were just on their way in and I grabbed a board for the photo. I was, of course, to anyone that asked me about the photo, the surf goddess of the North Coast!
I’m hoping that there is a statute of limitations for impersonating a cool dude!
I have a body board and winter-weight wetsuit in the garage. So it’s not that I never went in the water or anything. *Note to self – must get those on eBay…
I regretted not trying this long board surfing malarkey when in Hawaii, so I decided that September’s Microadventure would be to have a surf lesson. Barbados is 6,500kms from that Northern Irish beach and the waters in the more southern North Atlantic are just a tad warmer.
You didn’t think that I would be trying it in Cornwall did you??!!
2015 A Year of Microadventures for a Scaredy Cat 