Saturday 19th May

Niton again. This time with 5.0 on the Guerilla. We sailed in the morning for 2 and a half hours leading up to high tide. The decent swell that had been forecast never really showed up, but the waves were still good fun, even though it was just windswell. I would love to sail this place in a proper groundswell.

The pic shows that the launch is a touch trickier on high tide, especially if a set comes in and there is a surge. Basically you walk your kit down the slipway in the pic, swim it round the corner and towards the post mid-right pic. That is when you find out if you have the right sail up. It's not that kit-threatening in the waves we were in - bit bigger today, some overhead, maybe even a few half-mast lumps out the back. Good for a few big backside hits on the way in, then a quite fast bottom turn on the inside hoping to find a peak to hit.

There were some surfers out where the wave was smaller, but a little cleaner, but it was difficult to get onto the point to drop-in without taking out the line out and the wave was not so peaky once you had done your bottom turn which meant a fairly lame top turn. It was actually more fun to leave that section to the surfers and ride in front of the channel where there was a little sandbar which meant the waves were breaking and you could get a couple of nice smacks in.



Strange local in the car park.



Heading back up the track, looking West to the lighthouse on St. Catherine's Point.



It is a very scenic place to sail, when you are heading in the lighthouse and cliffs make a wonderful vista. You are also quite aware that there is a lot of water moving around and you are that much further out in the channel. The rolling swell out the back gets big quite quickly. Coming back if you miss the channel, then you have another chance about 100 yds downwind, then there is a point, then who knows where you would end up - almost certainly with a hike of shame as the next road access is quite a way away.

Two good sessions in two days and with plenty to time to do family stuff on Saturday. The Isle of Wight is a great pace to take kids, there is an absolute stack of things to do.