In the Blood by Alf Alderson

One sure-fire way to incur the wrath of any Welsh surfer - or Welsh person for that matter - is to refer to their country as ‘England’. For this it most definitely, assuredly is not.

Yet many a traveller from overseas, not to mention plenty from the rest of the UK who should know better blithely discuss Wales and England as if they were one and the same thing. Whilst it’s true that the two countries have much in common, you only have to scratch the surface of Wales and you’ll find that underneath is something very different to England.

And this applies just as much to the microcosmic world of Welsh surfing as it does to the wider world away from the blue-grey waves, warm pubs and happy-go-lucky locals that are part and parcel of Welsh wave riding.

Being brutally honest it has to be said that Welsh waves are never likely to have surfers from Oz, the USA, South Africa or anywhere else more than 150 miles from the Welsh border beating a path to the beach or reef upon which they break. I remember speaking to French surf photographer Sylvain Cazenave about surfing in Wales - I asked him if he’d ever been there - and he replied “Once, but I wouldn’t go back - too wet and cloudy”. Sylvain is a nice guy and was just stating the facts - and rain and cloud stop him earning a living, so I could see where he was coming from - but that’s the general view of 99% of surfers fortunate enough to live in a warmer, sunnier climate than that of Cymru.

Nevertheless, any surf traveller with a leaning towards more esoteric destinations might be surprised at what Wales has in store were they to take the time to cross the Severn Bridge, confuse themselves trying to pronounce the place names, and head for one or two of the better breaks. Because like anywhere else Wales has its good times - those days when the waves put their good foot forward, get down and groove. The classic scenario is late summer, when a bull’s eye low has been sitting out in the Atlantic for a couple of days and everyone knows a good swell is making it’s way up south west approaches. The water will be at it’s warmest - hey, it may even get up to 17C - the crowds will be diminishing and the sun may even shine brightly, although a swell like this is actually more likely in the colder months.

The locals appreciate these relatively rare ‘perfect’ days more than most, because unfortunately they don’t happen often enough (can they ever happen often enough?) For every day of straight edged lines sweeping up the Bristol Channel there are countless days of foamy mush; days when the wind swings onshore at the same time as the swell arrives; days when it’s just plain cold and wet. And yet, and yet…

Perhaps it’s because of this lack of consistency - no, forget the ‘perhaps’, it most definitely is because of it - that Wales’ surfers enjoy their waves so much. From the tat-fronted breaks of Porthcawl (but the place is a laugh, you gotta admit it) to the pristine coastline of Pembrokeshire the one thing that everyone has in common is a great ability to enjoy the surf, whether it’s two foot and onshore or six foot and offshore. In fact when the latter conditions arise enjoyment changes to ecstasy. Depending on the season people will rise from their bed before first light to scrape the ice off a winter windscreen (ecstasy momentarily on hold) or drive through the still dawn air of autumn to spend the rest of the day surfing. Six hours or more out in single figure air and water temperatures is, to quote Wales’ most famous son, ‘not unusual’.

This constant buzz of energy - best epitomised in surfers like former European champions Carwyn Williams (perhaps the best surfer yet to come out of Europe), and grand old man of the waves Pete Jones (PJ) - is fizzing even more strongly as we say goodbye to the 20th century. Wales is at long last shaking off its image as a dour, drab country of fat bellied rugby players, tedious male voice choirs and chapel-going old folk. Instead it’s becoming a vibrant land with a distinctive line in music and cinema and a realisation that when the clouds lift here is a landscape of verdant hills, fields and forests, mountains shouldering their way inland as far as the eye can see, and a coastline that in many places will take your breath away as you drive along it in search of the elusive waves of Cymru.

When you surf here it’s also difficult to escape a feeling of the past meeting you half way if you’re prepared to look for it. Wales is an ancient country with the oldest living language in Europe and a history that can be traced seamlessly back to the Stone Age, so it doesn’t buzz with the sunshine and exuberance of young countries like Australia or South Africa, and Welsh waves kind of reflect this great age. Beach breaks predominate, and they tend to be slow and forgiving.What reefs and points there are can be challenging, especially when there’s size to the swell, but they’re not some South Pacific wall of death hell ride (OK, there are a few spots on the Glamorgan coast and the Gower Peninsula, and one classic reef in Pembrokeshire that will give you a good run for your money, but this isn’t really the norm).

What is the norm is making the most of it, and the Welsh are experts at that. Like so much of Britain’s Celtic coastline, Wales has to deal with winds that are predominantly onshore, are often howling, and are often the source of the waves. You have three options in these circumstances - forget about it and go back to bed/the TV/the pub; go on what will quite likely be a fruitless search for better waves further along the coast; or just say to hell with it, suit up and paddle out.

Most local surfers will go for option three on the debatable premise that any wave is better than no wave. For me, choosing option three has resulted in such high points in my surfing career as paddling out at Pwlldu Point on the Gower in torrential rain and onshore winds to ride waist high waves; struggling to carry my board along the beach at Broad Haven South in winds approaching gale force to ride waist high waves; or seriously worrying about frostbitten fingers after the half hour walk back from a sub-zero November session riding waist high waves at a South Pembrokeshire ‘secret spot’. The two things these experiences have in common is that, yes, the waves were waist high, and that bizarrely I remember them all fondly because I was in the company of good people whilst something had allowed me to get a perverse sense of satisfaction out of the whole event.

Before the above descriptions lead you to express concern about the size of the waves, let me assure you that it does get bigger than waist high. Oh yes, I’ve been wishing I was elsewhere on more than once occasion as a set that’s far too big to be enjoyed by the likes of me has swept inexorably towards the shoreline, myself and my buddies. This isn’t Mavericks, of course (although climate-wise there are a lot of similarities), and ‘big’ is a relative thing as any woman will tell you, but we all have our limits and once or twice mine have been approached in Wales. On the whole, though, you won’t find a lot to challenge you if you want ‘big’.

The main challenge, in fact, is keeping up with the locals. Head down the ‘Mumbles Mile’ (the gateway to the hub of Welsh surfing on the Gower Peninsula) on a Friday or Saturday night, for instance, and you’ll soon see that in common with surfers the world over, the people here party just as hard as they surf. The Welsh, I would say, have an often overlooked but damned fine line in dry humour, as is often the case with people from inclement climates, and maybe this is honed even more when you spend so much of your life immersed in that inclemency.

Looking back on my first few surf trips to Wales (for I’m not a native) I can’t say that I made a conscious decision that I’d one day come to live here, but at the same time I remember those trips very vividly despite the fact they were half a lifetime ago.

One was to Llangennith in winter; a fire on the beach and the smell of wood smoke as we sat in the lineup; two foot waves the colour of a steel girder; and the one and only time I’ve ever surfed when it’s been snowing (we were young and keen and didn’t know any better if you’re wondering why).

Contrast this with the scene six months later in Pembrokeshire, when four of us paddled out into a clean four foot swell after an all night session in a local bar, and the dark blue of the sea, the sting of the waves, the brilliance of the sun all combined to dispel fatigue and the onset of a hangover. There was another first here too - the first time I’d seen seals in the lineup - and, come to think of it, the first time I’d seen such a beautiful stretch of coastline in the UK.

I stood above that very same beach some 20 years later to watch last summer’s eclipse, and the view, the atmosphere, the good friends and a woman who was inadvertently wrapping barbed wire around my heart then squeezing hard all conspired to produce a rush of emotions that I could never have expected. Had there been a clean groundswell rolling in to the beach three hundred feet below I think my neurons would have gone into overload.

Therein lies the beauty of surfing in Wales. No, it’s not world class, yet the place has atmosphere by the shedload - atmosphere that, for some people at least, ensnares them, having them come back for more even though they know there are a multitude of places where it could be, and is, better. And even when you’ve been away to those places - France, Costa Rica, Australia, wherever - once Wales has gotten into your blood you always look forward to coming home - even though it’ll probably be raining and onshore.

Well, there’s always tomorrow…