The Clocks Have Gone Back: How To Keep Surfing When The Light Runs Out

The clocks went back last night. You got an extra hour in bed, and in exchange the after-work surf is gone until March. By the end of next week it'll be dark before most people have left the office, and by December some of the country is getting barely seven hours of usable light.

That sounds like the end of the season. It's actually the start of the good bit. The swell is more consistent, the line-ups are emptier, and the water hasn't hit its coldest yet. The trick is working out where the light has gone and following it.

Where the hour went

Changing the clocks doesn't change the amount of daylight. It just moves it. For a few weeks after today, that works in your favour at one end of the day and against you at the other.

• Mornings get easier. First light jumps back to around 6:30 to 7:00am across most of England and Wales. For a few weeks, a dawn session before work is realistic again.
• Evenings disappear. Sunset drops to around 5pm in the south west, and earlier the further north and east you go. It keeps getting earlier until mid-December.
• The north gets squeezed hardest. Around the shortest day, Cornwall still gets roughly eight hours between sunrise and sunset. Caithness gets closer to six and a half.

Look up sunrise and sunset for your actual beach, not your town. Twenty miles makes a difference, and so does a big headland or cliff to the west.

Use the twilight, but know what it is

There's usable light for a while before sunrise and after sunset. In the south of the UK it's roughly half an hour to forty minutes either side, a bit longer in Scotland. You can see the sets in it. You can't see much else.

Paddling out at first light is fine if you know the spot. Staying out after sunset is where people get caught. The light goes faster than you expect, you lose sight of the rips and the rocks, and anyone on the beach loses sight of you. Treat sunset as the time you're walking up the beach, not the time you start thinking about it.

Lunchtime is the new evening

For a lot of people, the winter session that actually happens is the middle of the day. If you can work from home, start early or take a long lunch, the 11am to 2pm window is the warmest, brightest part of a December day, and there's often nobody else out.

It means planning around tide and wind more carefully, because you've only got one window instead of two. Our guide to reading a UK surf forecast covers how to tell in a minute whether that window's worth it.

Weekends matter more now

With fewer hours in the week, Saturday and Sunday carry the season. A few habits that help:

• Check the night before. Not on the drive. Decide where you're going and when you need to be in the water.
• Work backwards from the light. If the tide's right at 3pm and sunset is 4:15, you need to be paddling out by 2pm, which means leaving the house at 1. Do the sum in advance.
• Have kit packed. Every ten minutes looking for a glove is ten minutes of daylight gone. Our guide to surfing through a UK winter has more on making getting out the door easier.

Surfing in low light safely

Most RNLI lifeguard patrols have finished for the year by now. Add short days and cold water, and the margins get smaller.

• Don't go out alone at dawn or dusk. If you do, tell someone where you are and when you'll be back, and stick to it.
• Pick spots you know. Low light is not the time to try somewhere new.
• Keep a head torch in the car. For the walk back down the path, finding your keys and getting changed in the car park.
• Be visible. A bright board or a brightly coloured hood is easier to spot from the shore in grey light than black on black.
• Come in earlier than you want to. Cold and fading light together make tired people make worse decisions.

If you see someone in trouble in the water, call 999 and ask for the Coastguard.

The car park gets darker too

A sunset session means getting changed after sunset. It's colder, it's harder to find things, and you'll be doing it under a phone torch if you didn't bring a proper one.

Lay everything out before you go in: changing mat on top, then layers in the order you'll put them on, beanie where you can find it by feel. Our guides to changing in a car park and warming up after a cold surf cover the rest.

The short version

• Clocks back today: earlier mornings, no more evening surfs.
• Look up sunrise and sunset for your beach.
• Use twilight to paddle out, not to stay out.
• Lunchtime and weekends are your season now.
• Don't surf alone in low light, and keep a torch in the car.

The water's still warmer than it will be in March. Check our UK sea temperatures by month guide for what to wear, and get out while the light's on your side.

Kit built for exactly these conditions, not the brochure version. svrf.uk

Image by Michaela from Pixabay.