The reef has finally been finished on the Boscombe coast line. Personally I haven’t tried it out yet as the surf in my nearest spot has been just as good as anywhere else along the coast. Last time I went out on the 15/11 there were regular 4 foot plus sets coming in and I had no complaints.
The reef itself has had very mixed reviews. From what I can make out, the wave tends to barrel almost immediately without giving even the more experienced surfer time to pop up. With an almost vertical drop and a shallow zone in which to do so seems a bit much to ask of a lot of young surfers who regularly want to have fun and get back to college, school or work on Monday without the need for crutches.
In this video of a surf reviewer ‘Ben Mondy’ tells us how good it is, as does ‘Brad Petridge’ but every mention of the word ‘good’ or ‘nice wave’ seems to be tinged with a lack of confidence. The shots of ‘Ben’ surfing are also extremely short rides, every one of which look quite snatchy and it looks like he’s really struggling. When I went out a couple of weeks ago you could ride along the face and have a good 5 – 10 second ride on most of the swell coming in. The life guard looks VERY nervous when he’s speaking but this might be because he’s afraid of the camera, I’m not sure.
The only way to decide what it is really like is to get out there and try it but I can’t see the need to rush cause the surf is good anywhere at the moment. When its not so good, that will be the real test for the reef. Then again, when the swell isn’t so good, the reef probably won’t be producing anything anyway and good luck getting into position in what looks like a very small area in which to catch them.
Sorry for being such a pesimist. I do hope I’m proved wrong as time goes by but when you only see smiles on the faces of the bodyboarders, you can’t help but be a little bit cynical. Watch this space…
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