Starting our surf movie

June has been a manic month. Helen and I have both agreed we want to do this project together and have committed the next year to the filming of this documentary.

The Swansea Bay Film Festival ran on the first week of June and included a screening of my last documentary. The film was well received and at the award ceremony on the 8th it won a 'Tinny' for best film in the Environment and Ecology category. It was a lovely night and nice for the last 2 years of hard work to be recognised. But now that's done and dusted its time to
concentrate on this new film.

The end of May/beginning of June saw South Wales having nearly 2 weeks of consistent surf and lovely weather ­ a rare combination in the summer. The rest of the month hasn't lived up to the earlier promise and has been pretty much flat or so windy that what little swell was there has been blown out.

The flat spell has been accompanied by torrential rain. From what I've seen on the news we¹ve got off lightly on Gower with little in the way of flooding but that doesn¹t mean there¹s been no side affects to the heavy rain. For water users and surfers it was probably a good thing that there was no surf when the rain started. With the ground already baked hard from weeks of sunshine and no rain the first torrential rainfall would have had difficulty infiltrating the soil and would have just run off quickly instead into rivers, storm drains and the sea. The problem with this is the flash floods that were seen in the north of England and pollution. The pollution comes from 2 sources:

Direct run off from the land, for example, after a big tide or heavy rainfall sheep poo can be found in the line-up around Gower from the sheep that graze the coastline. Other pollutants aren¹t so visible such as pesticides and fertiliser.

Rain in built up areas can¹t infiltrate the soil anyway so the water runs into drains and in most towns and cities these storm drains are linked to the sewage system with overflow outlets going straight into the sea. So during periods of heavy and extended rainfall the sewage system carnt cope and sewage is mixed with rain runoff in the overflow pipes.

With perditions for climate change in this country including longer dry spells followed by more volatile storms and heavier rainfall this occasional problem might become a permanent one with major effects on marine life and the health of surfers.

This is one of the key concerns of Surfers Against Sewage a group that have

successfully battled for cleaner waters around Britain for the last 3 decades. They have also released a report this week on how climate change is and will possibly affect surfers and the coastal environment. It makes for interesting reading and is clearly set out for the average surfer or to understand.

Another point they mention in their report is the changing path of storm over the British Isles normally low pressure systems which come in off the Atlantic arrive in the south West first which is why Wales is known for it's rain and why Cornwall, Devon, Pembrokeshire and Gower are know for their surf. Their report predicts that the new path that the new path that storms would take would be further north so the first landfall the storms hit would be northern Ireland, West Scotland and the North of England ­ the place hardest hit by this months storms. The change in the track of the recent storms also accounts for the lack of surf in the last couple of weeks. I'm finding this all a bit scary that predictions are coming true in the same year that they are being published ­ isn¹t this something that isn't supposed to happen for years yet?

Next week Helen and I are off to Cornwall to meet up with the SAS guys and find out what they have to say. I'm also hoping to make the most of now and score some waves after a barren 2 eks.