I had such good intentions for today’s blog. Round 3 was imminent, just a few Rd2 heats to get out the way then it was game on. The weather was supposed to be sorting its life out and the swell whilst dropping was supposed to still be fun. No worries I thought, some small stuff will be good for punts and shit, be like an airshow yo. Here’s my first entry diligently typed on my phone.
What Huey giveth, Huey taketh away. Whilst the weather has improved the swell has buggered off. Not only that 50% of the coffee machines on site are flashing a confusing message that I think means 'Merde! Call an engineer... Je suis tres broken'.
Round 2 has dribbled to a close with the highlight being Wardo missing the first 10-minutes of his heat. When your job is being a pro surfer and your only obligation is to be at the beach at 9am for your half hour shift it's not too much to ask is it? That said I wouldn't be too jazzed on surfing head high pus either. He ‘overslept’ is the charitable version, ‘drunk’ is the other, but hey it’s Wardo- I’d be personally affronted if he wasn’t drunk or fighting or whatever. At least he does something interesting. More than can be said for Vanilla Dunn who even with the line up to himself couldn’t get any decent waves and only sealed the deal once Wardo had joined him…
Shooting the surfing isn't much fun yet. Dane is up soon so hopefully the saviour of pro surfing (!) can do some wheelies to make everything right with the world. I'm off to find a functioning coffee engine…
And that was that. End of Rd2 and they called it off. Sure it wasn’t amazing surf but it was better than what’s forecast for the next week. Just so you know I’m not buying this ‘swell next Thursday’ thing, one thing you should know about Europe- never believe an Atlantic pressure chart unless it’s for the actual day you are in, cos it changes every three seconds out there. Case in point in the late 80s the main six o’clock BBC news in the UK had the weatherman saying he’d received a call wondering if a ‘hurricane was coming’ he told the nation ‘not to worry’ cos there wasn’t… Millions of pounds of damage occurred and many people died that night because a) he was wrong, even with Met Office super-duper-computer behind him and b) it changes that quickly. So a forecast of 1m at 13-seconds for next Thursday is about as reliable as the English cricket team. Oh hang on we did win something this year didn’t we? Tee hee.
This event is going to be a long drawn out affair devoid of barrels or waves of consequence. It might just be the end of me… On the plus side some people are going to be riding motorbikes in the air tonight at the Centrale which is always exciting and sadly will pull a crowd ten times that at the Quik Pro.
Here's a little bonus: Slide's Guide to Le Supermarche! Bon!
There may be surf brand stores aplenty in the area but the most important store in Hossegor (well Capbreton) is this one....
