Guest Author - Sam Dillon
Winter can be depressing. It can get you down, it can get you cold, it can even get you dreaming of tropical climes.....
Winter can be depressing. It can get you down, it can get you cold, it can even get you dreaming of tropical climes.....
As surfers , especially Nelson surfers, we have a
secret weapon to combat the cold! Because we know that winter is the season of
swell when those big low pressure systems track further north, marching across
the Tasman and kicking up the northerly ground swells we crave, you know the
ones – the only ones fit into that funky jigsaw puzzle shape that is Tasman
bay.
Only trouble is when the school holidays roll around my
snow-crazy family harass me to head south into the mountains and ride the big
white walls instead. But this year I had a cunning plan, with a frothing teenage
grommet son who was ready to be blooded with some proper cold water surfing(well
he claims he was raised as a toddler down the coast), I thought why not throw
the boards in too and surf the icy perfection of Kaikoura on the way south? And
so we did, scoring some nice SE swell at afternoon Manga’s followed by a solid
glassy Meatworks session the next morning, brilliant!
First lesson for the young fella: (and one I seem re-learn
every winter) Kaiks is a whooole lot colder than Nelly..... cue the Fred Dagg
song. We dont know how lucky we aaare son!
Next mission is drive all night to Omarama and stay in a mates
shearer’s quarters, then wake up to minus 13! Well that aint my lucky number I
can tell you. The soggy wetsuits I left hanging overnight in the woolshed have
got 6 inch icecles dripping off them by morning and the booties.... well you
could hammer a nail in with them! Dont get that in Nelson.
The upside to minus 13 is that the snow is in perfect
condition and we spend the next few days making pigs of ourselves boarding &
skiing the mountains above lake Ohau, mint! Freshmint actually. Boarding a big
powder face is a bit like paddling into a giant bomb at Jaws or Cortez Bank....
without all the danger and certain death hold downs, like! Heading back north to
Arthurs Pass we score another day of mountain action before checking in with
Grassmaster swell tracking dotcom (we have been happily divorced form the
internet for many days). The Godfather of surf advises us to pin it straight
down the line for home as the goods are due for delivery soon. Thats all it
takes and we scorch northwards up the west coast stopping to watch the hardy
Cobden locals ripping through barrelling high tide lefts along the breakwater
whilst being blast frozen by the vicious 30 knot offshore Greymouth “Barber”.
Hmmm makes our SW look tame.
We cruise north through Punakiki stopping to surf big clean
Tauranga bay and for a real treat a sand bottom and no booties required. Another
late night driving mission has us pulling in to the Glen in the pitch black and
winding down the window to a warm northerly which felt distinctly tropical after
the deep south. I swear I could hear the sound of coconuts falling from the
palms...... although I guess it could have been the rocks rolling round in the
shorebreak! We dont know how lucky we are son.
We wake on Sunday morning to the deep Boom Boom of a solid
long period swell and instantly know the drive was worth it. After a slow start
you can imagine the bewilderment of pulling into an empty Snappers
carpark...... what the ?? Has there been a Mick Fanning moment or something?
Paddling out a crazy grin spread across my face as an empty
double overhead set rumbles through, and then as I swing and drop down the face
of a big freight train a full “Confucious-Grasshopper” moment ensued as I
realized the irony of the fact that I’d driven thousands of Km in a giant circle
only to find the ultimate stoke right on my front doorstep!
The ultimate full circle.... We’re unaware of how fortuituos
are the circumstances Fred!
Written and directed by Sam Dillon.
Yo Sam! I was photographing you that morning and I couldnt work out why no-one else was out. I was nursing a cough and didnt want to have a freezing vice around my chest so I had to stay put by the Tepee, but man, I was fiending to get out there! You scored some great waves! Have a look at my album on FB, Mid-Winter Promise :) Great write-up above too bud!
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