Spooked

Grey and overcast with leaden heavy skies that dipped down to the horizon. Brisk offshores that pulled a chunk off the top of the wave and created that characteristic long hiss after the wave had ominously rumbled past. Buckets of rain that turned the water a dark grey-green. A straight-in swell with lots of power driving strong rips and a light, rippling chop to an otherwise flawless ocean. And a dead calmness of manageable sets between sneakers that spun in at least twice the size of the in-betweeners.

This combination of conditions almost exactly matched an experience I had several years back (pushing 20 years back now) where I had the distinctly unpleasant experience of being held as an underwater hostage for two waves at a lesser known spot in North Wales. The only variation to the above was the water temperature which hung at a frigid 6 degrees C. It would be too dramatic to say I almost drowned but I was certainly seeing spots and clawing for an ocean's surface that never seemed to come.

This memory did it's own clawing in my psyche and conspired to leave me standing on the beach whilst Marcus went out to do battle with the hefty surf. Strange thing was that it was definitely much smaller than the swell of a couple of weeks ago but on that day the sun was shining, the water sparkled with a turquoise blue and everything seemed much friendlier. Such is the way of these strange fears we hold hidden away.

Three weeks ago. Sun's shining. In like a shot.

Last Saturday. Ominous. Watched from the beach.