Finding a new spot that’s right on your doorstep and scoring it 5 days in two weeks is not the norm for Welsh surfing. We’re normally driving around every corner in Wales checking spots, finally ending up surfing our local beach, and then raving about a head dip that someone almost had!
With all of the mental slab shots coming out of Scotland and Ireland it’s been a bit difficult for the Welsh to get any sort of coverage. The good old full frame shot of a tail slide at the local beach would not be considered as usable anymore.
We’ve been trying a few spots over the years, sand bars, off shore reefs, but it’s been an up-hill battle. Tides, winds and swell all need to be perfect. We were scoring these waves once every two years!
Wales needed something, and I think we found it!
During a run of solid swell in October we finally got it right!
Those first two weeks we surfed Colyn’s were the best weeks of Welsh surfing I’ve ever witnessed.
The place is magical. It was like being abroad, the sun always seemed to be out, there were good winds, hollow waves and no one around but our mates. It was like an adventure from the Famous Five or something joyous like that.
Most spots in Wales have legend and mystery embedded in them.
I remember hearing stories about Carwyn, PJ and the like finding the Gower reefs. As a kid, this seemed like the ultimate pursuit. I thought that everywhere in Wales had been found! I’d never have thought that we had our very own bit of history right in front of us, because believe me this spot is a Jewel!
The area is dripping with countless tales of enchantment, stories of princesses, pirates, knights and ghosts. One such is of the ghost of Colyn Dauphin, who is said to haunt the bay. He was a pirate that was sentenced to death by drowning by a local Lord. He was buried up to his neck in the sand at low tide. Then, as the tide rose he met his watery end. His screams are still said to be heard echoing in the bay.
Colyn's name was a name of terror in South Wales. At the sound of it children crouched around their mothers, and stalwart men trembled. Even in the present century the name of the great pirate is a power in the home, for the Welsh mothers and nurses still say, "Hush! Be good children, or Colyn Dauphin will come again!"
Today Colyn is still filling the locals with terror in the form of a super shallow left and right slab that sits along side his grave!
The wave is mental. It breaks from 2-6ft, in any wind and at most stages of the tide. The only snag is it’s not really ride-able!
The right is the safer option. The take-off is ok, then it warps across a ledge in about 1ft of water, and then closes-out on dry reef beneath the cliffs. The left is a bit trickier. Most of the waves are un-ridable, only Nate, Mark and Page surf it. It’s basically a dry take-off with an almost unmakeable drop, if you don’t get under the lip and in the barrel, you’re having it!
What’s crazy is that we have known about the wave for years.
Nathan and Vaughan surfed it years ago but dismissed it as being too shallow.
Dean page a local sponger has been surfing it for a few years.
The thing is, when we have waves, the last thing you want to be doing is goose chasing. We don’t get swell that often. With our location half way up the river, it takes a massive swell to get most spots to work, and with the combination of the tides, you have a small 2-hour window to surf! You can imagine the shit-fight when there are waves!
However when the waves are on at Colyn’s there’s nobody really fighting over surfing it, thanks mainly how dangerous it is and the injury toll that is racking up with each session.
All the boys have been hurt. Glenn broke his leg, (still managed the walk home), Mark’s been hobbling for 2 weeks after his last session, Nate, Guff and Steve have all have had a few face plants, and Nate’s had all three fins ripped out on one wave!
Don’t get me wrong, it’s no Riley’s, I mean you’re not going to die! It’s highly unlikely we’ll be seeing images of Nate imitating Fergal in a chocolate brown pit!
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