Rileys!
Where to start is the question! What a day. I figure I might as well start right from the beginning!
All the sessions, the hours I have spent surfing slabs and heavy waves have all lead up to surfing Rileys in my mind! Surfing a wave like it was the reason I started bodyboarding in the first place. Cian and I had seen a potential Rileys session a couple days previous so we were so happy when we saw that the forecast had stuck and that we thought she would be working. It was an early one again and we reached Clare at 8am with the prospect of surfing 2 differant slabs before heading onto Rileys. The first place we went to looked good but when we got out there the wind was blowing in the wrong direction and it wasn't breaking the way it usually does so we got out after about an hour and a half, disappointed but happy to get in the water none the less!
We then met up with our friends Tom and Emer and went for a well needed breakfast . We had a lovely 2 hours having a laugh and exchanging stories. Myself and Cian then realised that it was time we headed to our second wave of the day so we parted ways with Tom and Emer and struck off to our second stop of the day! When we arrived it was pretty windy and it wasn't looking good. The two of us sat in the grass examining it anyway just in case it started to work so we would have had time to get in straight away. That didn't happen, the waves stayed like it was so I guess we will have to wait to surf her!
After about 3 hours of watching waves, playing music and playing cards, finally it was time to head to Rileys where we met up with Tom and Emer as Tom wanted to surf it too! When we turned up it looked perfect! Head and a half to double over head perfect lefts coming through! We were stoked! We packed up and headed down. The usual half hour walk down didn't seem to take as long this time. We didn't really look at the wave much when we went down, I just wanted to get in the water! I was nervous. I paddled out and as soon as I was in position I saw a massive wall of water roll in, the offshore wind slowly started to make the lip pick up. Then the the wave jacked up and the lip threw out so far accompanied with a bomb like noise. It was on! I caught my first wave and my nerves began to settle. I slowly but surely worked my way to the peak. A big set came in and I began to paddle for it. As the wave began to pick me up I looked down to see the slab of rock beneath the surface in perfect view. I dropped down the face and pulled in and made it out of the end section barrel! I pulled off the wave and I knew that that wave was one of the better ones I had ever caught in my life! I was so happy! I can not wait to go down there again! Here are a few photos of Rileys, unfortunately the camera ran out of battery so the whole session wasn't documented!
Photos: Emer Murphy.
Cian
Cian about to drop in!
Me eyeing up the end section!
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