'Nothing compares to riding giant Cribbar waves'

A surfer has described the unique experience of taking on the Cribbar in April.

Andrew Douglas and Tom Buttler surfed Cribbar Reef in Newquay, Cornwall, on Tuesday with help from Jules Chenoweth towing them on a jet ski.

Slotted beside Fistral Beach, the Cribbar's 40ft (12m) waves attract some of the best surfers in the UK. The giant waves are only created a few times each year with the right combination of wind and swell over a scattering of reefs 500ft (150m) off Towan Head.

Douglas, a big wave surfer from St Agnes, said: "It needs a lot of stars to line up for it to work ... so it's quite a special occasion."

Douglas said he started surfing when he was three or four on holidays in Cornwall and moved to the county from Essex aged 19 to spend more time enjoying the sea.

"I knew it was going to be a huge part of my life and I've been in the sea ever since," he said.

Douglas said for April is was quite rare to get the big waves he experienced on Tuesday.

"You need a big low pressure sending plenty of swell here, but we also need offshore winds that come from the east, which is quite rare," he said.

He said himself, Buttler and Chenoweth had been travelling over Europe towing big waves and thought the season was over.

"Then we had this wonderful swell pop up out of nowhere," he said.

"We love it, I mean there's nothing that compares to racing down the face of a giant wave."

Because it was such a rare event he said they always made sure to make it happen when it arrived.

"The rest of the time can be for other things but when the crib is on then we make sure that we're all there," he said.

He added surfing was a team sport and Chenoweth was "the unsung hero of all of this because without him towing us into the waves we wouldn't obviously be riding them so it's a team effort."

"A lot of the time when you're racing down the face of the wave you can't really tell how big the waves ... until you're looking at the photos and the videos afterwards," Douglas said.

"My first wave was really bumpy ... and I almost thought that I was gonna come off and then when I looked at the video afterwards, it was the biggest wave I've surfed at the Cribbar so it was a special moment."

He added: "I've normally got like quite a busy mind but when I'm out surfing big waves like that it's normally a time when my mind is quite quiet and I'm just in the moment."

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