With ice forming on the beaches, snow in the air and one of the coldest winters ever on the cards, 2010 has so far dictated that getting in the water must be a precise, calculated and efficient affair. If frostbite is going to claim my digits I want to bag a session that makes it worth it.

When it’s blowing a blizzard outside, turning to the  internet for valuable wave information is the obvious answer, but up until now, surf websites and I haven’t exactly been seeing eye to eye. I’ve tried my hardest to get on good terms with windguru, magicseaweed and the rest, but although they try hard, sometimes they just don’t get it right.

Although still a favourite on my tool bar, magicseaweed can be a bit unreliable if the buoys are being bombarded – it seems all too easy for them to get thrown of kilter so that the online report  is left flipping the swell direction and wave period around like a metronome on overdrive. I’ve often stayed in on a dreary winter’s day because I’ve logged on, seen 25 mile an hour cross shores and a five second wave period only to speak to my more fortunately located friends to find out the reports got it wrong and a clean headhigh offshore wave was breaking on the push.

The webcam based sites aren’t much better. A revelation when it was launched, tiger24 offered streamed footage and stills of major beaches across the Southwest. However, with out of date images and offline cameras a regular issue, it can be hard to tell whether you’re looking at a recent shot or being conned into throwing your wetsuit in the car on the promise of some crisp winter water time only to be greeted by the onshore blustery mush of reality.

Gwithianlines can be similarly deceptive.  It’s a great little website if you happen to want to surf within an hour window of when the snap of the break is taken and uploaded, not so ideal if you are basing your afternoon’s surf decisions on a shot taken at 07:51am.

Now I know all this points towards the fact that there really is nothing that beats getting out there and checking for yourself, getting to know your local breaks and when they will be working – but it isn’t that easy if you work, if your green conscience keeps biting you in the back every time your engine chugs into life, or if you don’t have the necessary supernatural knowledge of wind and tide to be able to make the right call time and time again. For people like me who sit in all three camps, sometimes a push in the right direction can be mighty helpful. So where to turn…

Enter Twitter, your new best friend.  Yes, I was a sceptic at first too – the luddite in me is always clawing to get out, but I was introduced to social ‘i-balling’ over Christmas and I’ve never looked back.  Armed with an i-phone and a twitter account you’re able to find out exactly how the coast is looking from other like-minded tweeting surfers who are scouring local spots and telling you the score, so you can make the most informed decision possible.

Surfers of a technological persuasion are tweeting when they arrive, before they get in and when they get out, letting you know what the conditions are like, how the wind is looking, even what board to use.  It’s like having a dozen sets of eyes in 12 places at once and of course when you arrive at your destination you can retweet to pass the love on to the next surfer who logs on hunting for a wave. If you start out following one tweeting surfer you’ll be amazed how quickly your local network grows, with everyone sharing what their seeing for others to benefit from.

Of course there are arguments for and against this kind of remote information sharing and I am sure a few of the more secretive among you are retching at the idea of sharing tip offs with total strangers electronically, but I love the simplicity and openess of it – it’s just an extension of checking in with your mates; one localised, continuous conversation that keeps everyone updated, a share and share alike attitude that doesn’t rely on data, or buoys or webcams, just eyeballs, a touch of the modern electrical and a honesty and friendliness that’s surely what surfing should be all about. And yes there’s the overcrowding issue to take into consideration, but most of the tweeting surfers do it with care, reporting on conditions at the main beaches where everyone is likely to head anyway – letting you know the score so that you can easily work out if it will be working at that secret spot nearby.

So there, I said it. Twitter and the i-phone are good things. I like them. I use them. They make surfing better for me and for lots of other people. They are a valuable addition to the technological smorgasboard that is surf reporting today.

What do you have to say about that?

The last three weeks has seen some epic sessions go down. From tow-in barrel-seeking sessions in giant waves at Fistral to shoulder-high peelers perfect for longboarding, there has been something for everyone. Many classic spots that lie dormant for much of the year have been working – they’re packed with the mandatory crowd, of course, but if you keep your eyes open, quiet sessions can be found.

After three weeks of great waves, usual transmission has resumed. Howling westerly gales are forecast for the next week, the balmy late-autumn temps are fading fast and the dark nights have drawn in. So it looks like it’s time to batten down the hatches for winter.

Embracing the changing seasons helps you bond with your surroundings. It’s not hard: winter comes with many bonuses… The opportunity to surf spots that don’t work the rest of the year; stormy days spent seeking out that elusive spot you always heard about, followed by a pint in front of an open fire; the lower crowd pressure and open space, on land as well as in the water; expanding your quiver to surf winter’s more powerful swells; long, dark nights that give you more time to work on projects and, when it all gets a bit much, plan trips to far-flung places in search of sunshine.

As part of my morning ritual, I checked the conditions, and glanced outdoors into a gale. The charts made forbidding reading, and conditions were set to become grim as the squall approached. I left home knowing that it was to be big and rough – severe gales and 10-12ft sets were the news, and I would be capturing the spirit of the storm, if not on my board, with my camera.

As I approached Croyde, all that could be seen were close-out sets rolling almost to the horizon, which indicated straightaway the likelihood of finding a sheltered spot – pretty much nil. The tides were against me at all the spots I could handle in these conditions, and I could think of only one place to go – my secret spot.
The path to Lynmouth revealed a lorry, spun round by the approaching winds, and all manner of uprooted flora. On arrival it became apparent the swell was wrapping around the point all the way, and 10ft sets smashed their way into the shoreline. I headed up the incline to find some elevation and capture this singular event on film.
As I returned to my wagon I noticed a beanie-clad figure waving wildly at me. Nicky Lloyd, also searching for – and failing to find – a rideable wave. Lloyd is a laid-back scene guy and one of Second Skin’s team riders, he is as keen a searcher as I could hope to meet. I was glad he was with me. He doesn’t have many bad days and had a bit of a plan – he suggested somewhere just along the coast.
We’d come this far with no reward; I knew where he meant but I had never seen this spot working. In my experience it systematically failed to produce any goods. But today was a different kind of winter’s day, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a storm like this. Maybe we’d get lucky.

We took to the road together and drove for a few hard miles. I jumped out of the wagon, as excited as a first-timer. Adventure always yields discovery, and as we approached we could see a right-hander churning against the storm.
“How big do you think? It looks kinda small…” But we didn’t really care about size, we’d found a ride.
There were only two spongers out, and they seemed to have been pushed right around by the rip. Lloyd announced his intentions, quickly changed while making colourful reference to the temperature and, with that, we were in.
It seemed small and confused to start with, but as the tide pushed higher up over the pebble banks, the wave we hoped for roared into life. Strange bowly sections and doubling-up faces meant we occasionally took a visit to the rocky bottom. We didn’t care. The rewards of a fast, racy section and linking a six-foot floater could have given us enough pleasure to last all day, but we couldn’t endure it. The wind was biting, and it sent me into a blurred abstraction of white noise. Somehow I had ended up in a rock-strewn moonscape looking at surf perfection.

This left I’d found was miraculously unaffected by the gale that was stripping North Devon of virgin soil. I’m recording a real surf rarity. I know this as a middle-aged lady picks her way across the rocks to ask my profession. She explains that she has lived here all her life and never witnessed the scenes like these. After some time we drew a small gallery of faces on the shore line, some watching us, some simply watching. Ultimately, we shared our discovery with several locals who knew of this spot, and refugees who had joined the search.
Clockwork lefts found their way to me, linking move after move.
After the cold had finally drawn our day to a close and we could make no more use of our discovery, we made our way home. We had found something special, but no-one would believe our tales until we produced the shots of the day.
Some time ago, surfing in Sumatra, somebody told me to walk for 10 minutes and I would find Nirvana. ‘Damn right!’ I say as I show them the photographs.

www.extremeboardshots.co.uk