I have a friend who has been to Thurso, in Scotland, a few times and absolutely loves the place. It’s cold, pretty boring when there are no waves and about as far North as you can go on mainland UK, but the way he talks about it and the pictures he’s shown me – it’s somewhere I just have to go.

My wife and I came to London just short of 8 months ago and I haven’t surfed at all since we got here. To say I’ve been getting desperate for waves is definitely a huge understatement! The UK isn’t known as a surf destination by any means, but surfers and bodyboarders who live here have sought out top quality spots and when you really want to find out what waves can be had here you find yourself pretty surprised and amazed at what’s on offer. The swell only really hits in winter, and while that sucks a bit because of the temperatures, the upside is that only those who are dedicated and really love to get in the sea will be in the sea. I just bought a whole bunch of new gear – I gave away all my stuff before we came over – and I can’t wait to get to Thurso and try it all out.

I love to find out about the places I’m going to and find out about the spots there and the type of coastline. To give you a small taste of what we hope to find up in the North sea I thought I’d let you in on a little bit of the prepping that I’ve been doing over the last little while. A while back my friend sent me this shot of a spot he saw near Thurso, which he says is probably unrideable.

I decided to go searching for the spot on Google Earth and, with guidance from my friend, I found it. (I do the Google Earth thing pretty often and just cruise along coastlines to see what I can see – I love it and sometimes I waste a lot of time doing it.)

You can see how it’s running along that ledge – it looks awesome and heavy, and sadly I sort of have to concede that it does look kind of unmakeable when you see it from above like this. There is no friendly channel at the end of it like you want at a shallow reef/ledge break, but I will definitely go and have a look for myself! Just to see a wave that looks like that will make me stoked – even if I can’t ride it. If it’s looking anything like that first picture though I might just have to paddle out just to see… – if I’m feeling brave!

We leave for Thurso next week Thursday and we’ll be there hoping and searching for waves for about 8 days. I’ll have a full update when we get back and should have a video to post a few days after that.

Thanks for reading guys, and please vote in our poll in the sidebar – we’d love to know what you want to see and it just takes two clicks and a little bit of hand-eye coordination!

Later…

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