A week after our first equipment evaluation expedition for our 2015 Arctic Basin Big Wave Surfing Contest the signs were looking good once again, albeit with a southwesterly wind once again. Here’s how our compact format surf forecast looked for noon on March 7th, courtesy of some copying and pasting from Magic Seaweed’s global surf outlook:

You’ll no doubt note that the swell height out in mid Atlantic was off the top of the truncated scale. That’s because it’s designed for use in the Arctic Basin, where 40 foot waves are very hard to come by! Take a look at the last link below to see what I mean.

Given the wind the shelter of Putsborough was the order of the day when it came to spot selection. Water temperatures hadn’t changed significantly in a week, but the sun was shining on this occasion, which is undoubtedly preferable to the rain we experienced last time:

Donning the same gear as last time even my fingers didn’t feel cold this time around, although my partner for the day (encased in a standard winter wet suit plus separate hood) described conditions as “f…. cold!” even after warming up thoroughly, as you can see here:

Eat your heart out Anastasia Ashley! After the session considerably more energy was expended by the two of us extracting yours truly from his Tiki Prodigy 6/5/4 suit. After that I started chatting to Simon, who happened to be parked next to us in the car park at Putsborough Sands, as dusk started to descend. Here’s what happened next:

Towards the end of our conversation I explained the rationale behind our Arctic Basin big wave surfing contest, and briefly touched on some of the associated Arctic surf science. For the scientifically inclined amongst you, there’s a much longer explanation available in this companion article!

“Sea Ice and Swells in the Beaufort Sea in the Summer of 2014“