The second day on the green island began in much the same way as the first. The wind was due to come today, but not until around twelve o’clock. So we decided to have a long sleep first and then have breakfast in peace.
After looking at the forecast, we decided to extend our accommodation for another night. This didn’t seem to be a problem in terms of space, as we increasingly had the feeling that we were the only guests – well, it was November.
Then we got in the car and checked out the spots. First we went to Brandon Bay to the spots “Mossies” and “Dumps”. Here, however, it was blowing a bit too much onshore and the waves didn’t look at all like we had imagined. Somehow clearly too small and disorganized. With a view of the super long crescent-shaped Brandon Bay, we decided to head further south. With a bit of luck, the wind here would be side-shore to side-off-shore.
So we got back in the car and headed towards Castlegregory. We passed the statue of St. Mary and then turned right towards Dingle. Here you drove up a hill towards Stradbally and were able to look out of the window over the whole of Brandon Bay. In the background you could see Mount Brandon, which lies at the end of Brandon Bay.
We liked what we saw from here a little better and so we turned right along a dirt track towards “STRADBALLY BEACH”.
There were already two large Irish campers here on Stradbally Beach.
However, no one was to be seen on the beach itself. The conditions were difficult to assess. It didn’t feel particularly windy and the waves didn’t look exceptionally big either, but they looked very clean. However, this was probably also due to the fact that it was low tide and we were therefore still a relatively long way from the water.
We were already talking about our larger sails and that we could just give it a try and then a few hundred meters to the north we saw a sail between the waves and a bus standing on the beach.
A short time later, we had found the access road and, fittingly, the Irish local was just trudging out of the water. He told us that he had to get going again because his lunch break was over and asked about our smallest sail size. At first, 3.5 and 3.7 square meters didn’t fit at all with what we saw on the beach – but oh well. We thanked him for the advice to put up these sails and drove back to our accommodation to load the car.
Back at the spot, the conditions seemed to have improved somewhat. 3.7 still felt far too small, but we rigged it anyway. After walking all the way to the water’s edge, we suddenly realized that the waves here were probably the cleanest we had ever seen. And this natural spectacle was now apparently going to belong to us two amateurs all by ourselves.
We were completely alone on a beach several kilometers long, where you often couldn’t see the end of the perfectly parallel lines in the distance. It was almost a bit surreal, especially when you think back to the overflowing parking lots of the Baltic Sea with onshore winds and the small so-called “waves”.
My first attempt actually went straight through the shore break and behind the lines. Here it was more or less mirror-smooth or at least not wavy enough to be able to freeride a bit.
On the way back, I was reminded of my time in Ireland a year earlier. With these endless straight waves and side-offshore wind, it’s just outrageously easy to start into the breaking wave, stay on the wave and still keep up the speed. However, I was already finding it relatively difficult to ride proper turns again.
I felt the same way the next time I tried to get through the shore break. Even though 3.7 definitely seemed to be the right choice for riding the waves, it had a little bit too little power when crossing through the shore break.
But even when the wind picked up later in the day, it was somehow difficult to get through the relatively powerful shore break. Here again, the length of the waves was not exactly an advantage, as it was almost impossible to ride completely past the breaking part of the waves.
So off we went again and again onto the water and in most cases into the washing machine by the time we reached the last wave to be crossed. This is where you really felt the power of Atlantic waves that they built up for thousands of kilometers. It was simply not comparable to what we were used to in the North and Baltic Seas.
As the wind picked up and the waves got bigger with the tide, the beach became increasingly “crowded”. Another windsurf tourist from Italy and two locals were now sharing the spot with us.
Our Italian friend also shook his head when he saw the 3.7 sails and grabbed his 4.2 with motivation. Half an hour later, however, he hauled everything back to the beach and changed to a 3.7.
After a while, the tide unfortunately swallowed up the entire sandy beach, leaving only a much more uncomfortable exit over large round rocks. The wind was now blowing like crazy. The waves were getting bigger and bigger. Every attempt to cross the mountains of white water robbed us of any energy reserves for the next 15 minutes. And even rocks above the five-kilo mark were pulled back into the sea by the back-current of the waves and then rolled back onto the beach with a murmuring sound.
But despite everything, it was just unbelievable fun. Every jump you just managed to make over the breaking wave, every wave you managed to ride made up for 10, 20, maybe even 100 washes. Every time you headed back towards the shore, you could see the endless beach and the mountainous green landscape that stretched out behind it. The sun bathed everything in a dreamlike scenery and shone into the two to four meter high spray that was torn off by the crests of the waves.
And all this with the certainty in mind that there was almost no chance of drifting off from this crescent-shaped bay. The waves on the beach were extremely brutal, but further out there was almost no current, neither out to sea nor parallel to the beach. By the end of the evening – we hadn’t been able to find an end until after dark – our human batteries were empty. All our muscles were crying out for a break and our stomachs for a proper dinner.
That’s what we had. At Inch Beach there are perfect burgers to replenish all your reserves. The restaurant here is located directly on the beach, which also offers a very good wave spot with parking directly on the beach at Side-Off. I was able to see both for myself back in 2016. Dolphins are also said to have been spotted here from time to time.
Unfortunately, we were denied this privilege on this day, because after our cozy dinner, everything outside was already pitch-black. So we went back to our “spacious” surf mobile and back to our cozy bed on the Maharees.
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