The Surfing Archives

My friend sometimes talks about the archives – that at the end of our surfing lives we’ll remember just a handful of our waves. Which is crazy when you think about it, all those waves ridden, time spent in the ocean, big days, small days, heavy days – they all blur, punctuated by a couple of memorable rides. 

But there’s another archive too. One full of sensations around the quest for waves. People. Places. Experiences. Discoveries. Finding new waves, depending on where you live or surf, can seem like fantasy.  

In Scotland, we receive swell from 3 directions, have a coastline of 6160 miles, with 800 islands lying off the mainland, and relatively few surfers. Discovery is part of surfing here, and often made by accident. The fabled Norse Shore, which is home to several world-class waves like Thurso East, was stumbled upon when a surfer was up from Edinburgh, 6 hours to the south, to attend a wedding. By chance, the whole coast was absolutely firing.

About 5 years ago my father retired to one of the many Scottish islands. He bought a plot of land and assembled a beautiful kit house. Quite a project given the long winters. He spent a summer, with the help of contractors, building, assembling, refining. The house that dad built. It was on top of a low hill, a fine bungalow, open log fireplace, heated flooring, snug and warm. Finished by mid-autumn, he settled in.

The island caught my eye. The map showed it received swell from at least two different directions. A craggy coastline of sandy beaches and rocky reefs would surely convert some of it, some of the time, into rideable waves. As anyone interested in looking for waves knows, it’s easy to get excited about such things. When pouring over Google maps, steaming coffee in hand, everything looks like a potential J-Bay. But reality is rarely so simple. My first trip there, in summer, was not timed for swell. Three ferries and a long drive later I pulled up at dad’s bungalow on top of the hill.

Today, Scottish island communities are mostly uncertain; lingering traditions are less visible than the influx of people from further south – retirees, lottery winners, oddballs. One tradition which does remain is a mistrust of the sea. My enquiries about surfing were met with blank stares, chuckles and assurances that the beaches were nice, but surfing was out of the question. Only when pushed would a few dog-walkers mention a beach which was ‘often windy, lots of breakers.’ My father, despite being shown many magazine cuttings of waves, was adamant no such thing existed on the island. 

Despondent but determined, I set out to find waves. Armed with my map, binoculars and a flask of tea, I drove. And drove. A muddy farm track here, a wind-swept beach there, a choppy sea with little sign of surf or small, ruler lines of swell coming in and closing out on long beaches. Yet each spot held that faint promise – perhaps, if the swell was a bit bigger, or from a different direction…

Several similar trips followed. A three-day voyage. Always summer: bad timing, no remarkable surf. But still I poured over the maps, squinting at the Island Ranger’s photos of seals that showed clean swell lines in the background and wondered what that little reef I’d scouted was doing on that day. I even instructed dad to head out with the camera to take a picture of places on certain days when I’d looked at the wave forecasts, only to receive blurred, random photos of white water, or pictures taken between sets; the surfer’s eye often taken for granted. 

Then the chance arose for a winter visit. Christmas provided the perfect excuse to spend a week there, in the depths of winter, when the island is being bombarded by swell. Even in the cold and driving snow and rain, it would finally lay to rest whether the island did indeed produce rideable surf. 

I almost bottled it. The ferry company were advising that severe weather would disrupt most services and I knew, having spent a couple of days getting waves in the 6-8 foot range on the mainland, that the open ocean swell would be heaving. My sea legs aren’t strong and the coastal extremities of Scotland in winter are no place for faint hearts. Travel plans often go to waste up here. You go when you can and may be staying longer than you planned. With any surf mission out to the islands the swell you hope to ride is the same one that will cancel the ferry. So you better hope it’s worth it. And take a good book.

Before I left the mainland I bumped into an old surfing friend who, it turns out, had heard of another surfer visiting the island years before – and finding waves, keeping the discoveries quiet. Spurred on by this, an omen perhaps, I grabbed the opportunity while it was there and found myself sitting, sickbag in hand, ready for a very rough ferry crossing.

As with many things, the crossing wasn’t as bad as I had imagined and I arrived in good health and high spirits. I bedded down for the night before taking the next and final ferry across to dad’s island.

The first day and it was immediately obvious that daylight hours were a factor, getting light at 10am and dark by 3pm meant very little time to play. What’s more, winds were gusting up to 100mph. I persevered, battling the wind across fields, driving down flooded tracks, scoping the place as best I could. One especially early nightfall, around 2.30pm, I found a beach, howling offshore, lots of closeouts, but the odd makeable one. Did I manically suit up in the howling wind and golf-ball-sized hailstones? No. The fire was on at home and a whisky and book was a lot more appealing. Although the waves that day were not perfect, I have often confronted the reality of finding cold gnarly waves, alone. All of a sudden, things seem more heavy when there is nobody around to share the stoke with. What should be a 10 minute surf check turns into an hour long ‘looking-for-an-excuse-not-to-go-in’ shuffle.

A week passed pretty much the same. Howling winds everyday, the odd ray of sunshine but generally the skies were grey-black with driving rain. Some days I got out of the car for a 30 second sprint to the beach only to turn back half way – unable to take the pain of the hail and the knife-like wind. Despite it all, it had been a great week. Atmospheric, moody, fresh and I always enjoyed meeting the island characters, hearing their stories, listening to their day-to-day. The trip was drawing to a close and I was headed back south – to familiar places I knew I’d find waves.

My last day on the island I woke with the sunrise. It was a strange calm, the sun slowly lingering above the horizon across the bay, I snapped some photos from inside the house as its light filled the porch. I ventured out, crunching the gravel of the driveway, and it became clear why everything was different – for the first time all week the wind had dropped. Noises which had been constant – the chimney howling, my car shuddering – were gone. Out in the bay what had been a broth of white chop was now a calm, dark silk. I looked out the back window and saw what should make any surfer’s heartbeat skip faster. Clean lines, moving in order towards the coast. That should have been my cue to get on it. But, six days in and without another surfer to galvanise a dawnie, I procrastinated. I’d gotten into a routine. I made coffee, laboriously cut some bread for toast and spent way too long removing the pips from an orange. I read a few pages of my book. Eventually I was fuelled and ready to venture out, but not before starting to pack my things away in preparation for taking the evening ferry.

I got in the car to do what had become my daily round – check the left point near the village, then head up north to look at the beach, swing by the slab and then see what the point was doing. The point which had been rumoured by my friend. Again the sense of calm hit me as I set off along the main road, waving at the farmer in the passing tractor, today was a different day. 

When I glanced down to the point, I am glad there wasn’t a car behind me. My brakes screeched and I howled. I thrust the car into reverse and took the bumpy farm track. Everyday this right-hand point had looked like a messy maelstrom, yet occasional flashes in the middle of it all – fleeting seconds – which had made me think, could this be a decent point-break? Today revealed it was. An epic one. What had caused my howl and rapid reversing was the sight of clean lines reeling down the point. 50 – maybe 100 – metres, right-handers, screaming, bouncing down that track, not a drop of water out place, mechanical perfection. I was running across the field, unable to contain screams and yelps, the swell was consistent and brought a new set down the point every couple of minutes. Sizey too, perhaps 6 foot. I held my camera and GoPro, unable to get any decent pictures despite the whole arena for me, or was it just that a photo can’t convey the emotion on the day? 

I was screaming at every set. Trying excitedly to get a decent photo. I sent a confused text to a friend, the sort you might send during the high of a night out. Incoherent, excited, senseless, yet conveying the general mood. I kept jumping and screaming. A herd of sheep looked up at me to see what the commotion was. But apart from them, I was alone. 

My dad had wandered this coast a lot. Even, I later discovered, had seen this point working. But had dismissed it as a ‘rough sea’ or ‘dangerously rocky’. 

Trepidation about venturing out alone at a new spot in the middle of nowhere has thwarted many of my solo surf missions, just a single close-out can persuade me it’s not really rideable. This time, the reeling point gave no reason not to partake. I called my dad, wanting to have some back-up, but also someone to share it with. He came down, wrapped up in scarf, gloves and winter jacket, out on a winter’s day walk. I changed quickly and ran down, across slippery boulders, jumping in and getting sucked up the point to the take-off zone, an easy paddle out.

I watched a few sets and monitored nervously for big seals and whales (I saw none the entire trip) and hooted into a few empties. My first wave was carefully picked out from the set – the second one – comfortably out on the shoulder, I dropped down a chattering wall of water to look ahead at a tapering wave running ahead. The whole bloody enterprise was simple – funny how easy surfing can be when the wind drops and the waves get good. The feeling of paddling and easily catching that first wave was a revelation. I had had a niggling doubt that despite appearances perhaps it was unrideable, that I’d have that sort of session where it was a labour to paddle in to anything. So to fall into that long, dark blue wall after a few paddles then pump for metres down the line was almighty. I paddled back up the point, watching set after set reel down it, and took the next few waves deeper and deeper.

The tide started to drop out and the wind changed – the best window had been when I was lounging with my coffee in the house, dreaming of perfect empty waves – but I was elated and rode my next wave all the way back in. Dad had long gone – the battery on his camera run out and the cold unbearable. But I was glowing bright in my 6mm wetsuit, boots and gloves, having found such a good place to surf, and just round the corner from dad’s place. I stayed suited up, taking in the surroundings, eyeing the farmhouse at the top of the track thinking that yes, this is the kind of wave you could just live on, learn its moods, spend a winter here. Become its apprentice. A wave so long and perfect that you could become a solid surfer. Alone in a cold, remote environment. 

I spent the rest of the day checking all of my other spots – of course conditions were such that the whole coast was firing, every damn place I checked and then some, was going off. I was the only surfer on the island. It was harrowing, driving past another insane looking point, not enough daylight to run across the field to check it out from close. But I managed another 2 surfs that day, at a beach break and then another right point. What a score. And on the last day. I raced back to the house to gather up my things and make the last ferry. I had to drive right past the point, shrouded in darkness now like it had been for who knows how long. I sat on the ferry, glowing, salty and stoked. Around me some islanders complained about the rough sea. I warmed up by sipping a Styrofoam cup of tea, knowing I’d be back soon, the whole experience emblazoned on my memory, a solid entry into my surfing archives.