Surfers brave the freezing waves of Westward Ho

Before we get on to the frivolities of SurfSoc’s weekend, we’d just like to put out a quick word of respect to one of the biggest names in the surfing world, who sadly passed away last week of dengue fever. Andy Irons, 32, was widely regarded as being one of the most genuine, in-it-for-real big surfers, an admirable trait in the commercial world of competitive surfing. As someone who represented the true spirit and love of surf, his sudden death hit the community hard and we’re amongst the tens of thousands who wish his widowed wife and child-to-be our condolescences. RIP A.I.

Awkwardly jumping from that sad bit of news, SurfSoc’s first trip of the year! London did its best to discourage our 32 keen surfers on Friday, with classically grey skies and droplets of rain giving the weekend a bleak prediction. Undeterred, moods were high as our buses trundled their way towards the coast. A couple of traffic accidents and speed restrictions meant we arrived in Westward Ho late, making the scrum for beds in the hostel all the more vicious. Drinking games quickly started up and the rest of the night became a blur of slaps, failed basic arithmetic and excessive consumption.

As ever, people miraculously managed to ignore an epidemic of sore heads and shaky limbs the next day, somehow crawling out of bed to hit the beach early. Cold water and a bit of sunshine are still undoubtedly the best cure for hangovers, sorting out pretty much everyone except for the SurfSoc president, who ended up lamely blaming a bout of “sea-sickness” for his loss of balance. The Irish contingency showed off their high calibre, letting Devon know how it was done with a sweet weekend’s worth of surfing. Massive kudos to John McGuckin for managing to pull off a cutback on a foamie. Hendrik Frentrup and Julius Klein brought about some new class to our ranks with their considerable skill, and kindly lent assistance and advice to the less experienced - good fellahs. Lanky James Pye looked like some kind of lighthouse out there, 6’4” of chilled longboard casualness. Roxy Jourdain spelt out the opposite, blurring across waves with her bodyboard and shouts of ecstatic joy, excellent stuff. Dario Mazza, Will Hunt and Elliot Taylor and the rest of SurfSoc’s regulars all had to be dragged out the water by the day’s end, testament to great waves, sunshine and good company.

Over the afternoon, people trickled back to the hostel, hitting the warm showers and beds for some much-needed napping. A bodged ginger/apple/orange roast pork concoction started off the evening...our hungry surfers managed to polish off over 11 kgs of meat in one sitting. Nice! Dessert (Tesco Value cider, 2 litres of 4.8% death for £1.20) was immaculately presented in a wetsuit boot courtesy of Tom Utley. It marked the start of another long night, with Milana Shapira most definitely winning the prize for “Littlest Big Voice”. Lizzy Griffiths became victim to the “one girl, two cups [and a bit of duct tape]” game, but proved her status as our social secretary by leading the party with her smiles and giggles all night long.

Sunday’s surf died down a bit, but not enough to stop the extra-keen from heading out there before 9AM. Devon’s sun came out to play once again, and it was good to see everyone willing to don damp wetsuits, boots and gloves in order to get back into the waves. Things picked up as the sun climbed higher, and when the time came to go, everyone left with water with massive cheesies plastered across their faces.

The Darwin Award of the weekend had to go to Serkan “Duncan” Karaagac, who (after a few drinks) decided that tackling Ireland’s Kickboxing champion extraordinaire, David Harkin, would be a really, really good idea. It wasn’t, Dave rapidly executed a couple of ninja death moves that turned the rascal into some kind of mouldable, human-type putty rag-doll. He then proceeded to demonstrate with great flourish the various anatomical positions a human body was never meant to perform. Once Serkan had been abused enough, a pat on the back saw him off merrily in the search for more booze and mischief, somehow none the worse for wear and still grinning ear-to-ear. Additional Darwinian mention goes to Alex Bowers, who unsuccessfully attempted to bounce a surfboard off his head (in retrospect, he was quite successful but the board won). “Hardcore” Harvey could probably use some mention in the Darwin Award books, but we’re just going to shake our heads sadly at him for now, and make the poor lad put on some clothes next time. A shout-out to fresher B.J. King for having the world’s worst initials.

All-in-all, the trip proved to be a massive success and the SurfSoc committee are proud to say we’ve nabbed a great bunch of new Freshers and members. Hope to see you all, and anyone else wanting to get in on the action, next month when we take on Newquay!