Derry Dawnie...

Back in Derry for the weekend visiting the folks and decided to head out for an early sesh with the bro, Aaron and Luke before they went to work. Was empty early but by the time Adam had a surf and grabbed the camera it had filled up...

Yours truly (though a few inches of hair shorter) coming from the the bottom...

and sitting off the top!

Kildare come Inishowen man, making the most of his morning before real life begins...

Pulling out and dropping in...

Luke and Aaron coming back up the beach from an apparently "far bigger, far better wave". The grass is always greener boys, but Lukes rye smile tells me there may have been some truth to the tale...

Aaron and his trusty...

For all you Eagle eyed Tonnta readers out there you may notice I've got three different spellings of my name in the latest issue, Thom Smyth, Thom Smythe and Tom Smyth. Well here I am again, not quite making it...

Luke going left on the bendy Bic. (Just take a closeup at the nose of the board!)

Bump!Another wave, another Westbay

Dropping in...

The crew and the trusty overloaded fiesta. Massive thanks to the bro for cutting short his sesh to run in and grab the camera to give us some pics. Nice one Bruva!

Getting easier...

After Tuesdays clear skies and sunrise, Wednesday dawned foggy cold and small...

Waited a couple of hours till the push this am and scored a couple of real fun loggable lines just before the wind picked up. Spotted this guy heading into the water just as I was leaving. Real men don't wear wetsuits...

Got up at 5.45 for my third dawnie in a row this week. I often write about losing the battle of the duvet but its definately getting easier, one factor is simple routine and the second is chasing the stoke that was found on Tuesday morning. 30-45 minutes of sunrise, clear skies and chest to head high glass. Awesome...

My cross-stepping seems to also be slowly getting better too. Well, to the front of the board anyway, I still can't help shuffling my way back. Just gotta stick at it I guess...

An ode to the dawn patrol...

From the days of the dawn patrol...

I used to be able to get up before the sun. Drive the 30 miles to waves, surf a few hours and then head to work. But that was during the summer. Been trying to get up round first light to go surf before work these days. First lights only 7.30ish am and the surf's only a mile away but the cold, wet, winter mornings have been keeping me under the covers.

I did get to enjoy some mid-morning waves today but somewhere in the back of my head was telling me it was better earlier...

Back for more...

Cleaner than last night but not any bigger...

Air temps made it feel a bit crisp this morning

Aaron's 6'2 wasn't quite in full flow on the pretty small, flat wave faces. At least he found a bit more success on the fish.

Aaron's girlfriend Laura (who is also my next door neighbour) , supastyling. Found out Laura's currently painting one of my older shots onto a three piece canvas at the minute too. Stoked!

Awok trying to unrun another section on the fish

Yours truly lining up a wee one.

Worth waking up for...

Early peeler

The battle of the 6'2's. Aarons new stick on the left and the trusty fish.

As with the past few nights, it got better as the tide pushed

Not massive but clean, offshore and the sun even made an appearance. Loads of fun.

Peak a Boo

Beach life and the Man Utd youth team training for the milk cup.

Aaron and I made the resolution to have one last pre-work dawny before I quit Tesco at the end of the week. It hasn't happened since I've been keeping confessions but in the past couple of summers Aaron and I were pretty regular dawn patrollees, buzzing to get a surf in before returning to the real world. Thankfully today sentiment paid off and last nights pretty lumpy surf turned into slightly smaller clean offshore peaks up and down the beach. Had a wee bash on Big A's new 6'2 aswell and was impressed by how easily it caught waves despite being nearly an inch thinner than the fish. Its getting my confidence up to get back on my quad again!