A Long Sunday in South Wales

Since getting back from Norway I feel I’ve embraced a summer of mediocre English boating fairly well. Sit-on-tops on the flat, marathon boating and the like – great fun, but hardly adrenaline pumping. This weekend, though, I needed something different. I gathered up some good mates and a plan started to come together. With only Sunday free we had to cram in as much as possible. Looking at the tides we realised that, with a bit of motivation, we might be able to grab a session in at the Bitches and Severn Bore on the same day.

Arriving at St Davids at 2am left us 2 hours of sleep before we found ourselves kitting up and heading off into the darkness. Luckily we’d opted to take the new Dagger Greens and having a long boat made the early morning ferryglide all the more pleasant. A couple of hours of sunrise soul surfing and much yeehaa-ing later and it was time to head back to Whitesands bay (via the mandatory fry up in St Davids) for a few hours of kip in the sun.

When we woke up it was off to Newnham to catch the Bore (via Rosie’s for tea and cake). We then waited.. and waited. As the sun went down we thought of all the things we could be doing instead.

Suddenly we heard the rumble. “Bore Coming!” It got louder until the noise was terrifying! It felt like getting to a class V drop when you’re expecting a river to be all class II bimble. Out of the black the wave arrived – 3/4 ft high, glassy and green. We surfed until we all fell off, pegged it back to the car and overtook it again for two more hillarious surfs. Crashing through nettles and seal launching into the darkness is all part of the fun!

Still buzzing and giggling to myself two days later I had my first run down local South Wales Classic, Poo Creek. Perhaps a summer of English boating is something to get excited about after all…

Tim

Check out http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/ for tide times and Bore info

TIP: Take a fast boat

Good guide to the Bitches on UKRGB

http://www.ukriversguidebook.co.uk/bitches.htm