Accounts of searching for surf in the magazines usually leave out the actual search part. So they can get straight to the immediate gratification of showing us a perfect day at a perfect reef with only the crew out etc etc. This fits nicely with the way surfing is going - quick and easy hits brought to you by the wonderful internet and surf travel industry. No muss, no fuss..

I like the search, myself - it's often a drag, but the rewards can be spectacular. Here's a pretty normal day, looking for (and not finding) the next wave...

Up at 6.30am with The Kid. He's three now and he knows when I say "Daddy's going surfing", I'm gone for the day. Good lad. Out at 7 and taxi to the port. We're in the Carribean - hardly unknown territory for surfing, but we're not at one of the super well-known places, so there's still a little bit of mystery left. My expectations are pretty low - the Carribean needs a typhoon swell to really work at this time of year, otherwise you're left looking at short-period wind-swell from the east combined with easterly trades. Yum - onshore sloppy windswell - gets the heart rate up just thinking about it.

I have a hearty breakfast of fried chicken and instant coffee while waiting for the ferry. Hang out and watch the super-turned-out local women getting ready for work (I mean, sharp), the guys playing dominos on the warf, lots of early morning greeting going on ("Man, every time I see you, you lookin' younga! Watcha eatin'?").

Ferry comes, trip to the next island, stroll through the town with the board. Get the rental car, to the market, get water, bananas (giving everybody a good laugh at the white boy when I try and buy plantains instead of bananas), we're off. The easterly side of the island is wind-blown and open. The road is good - I only get lost once - the road narrows to 10 feet, and a passing Dread herding goats bangs on the roof of the car and says "You OFF DA MAIN, OFF DA MAIN, go BACK DOWN A ROAD MAN".

A little more cruising, watching the coastline, and here we are - according to the map, an open beach, facing east, with a double point facing kind of north-ish, which I figured ought to be a little sheltered. My expectations were still too high - the beach break is totally blown out, and the point has a good setup, but the windswell is way too weak to break in anything but six inches of water.

Oh well - try the next one - drive the rental down a cane road until it looks like it's going to get stuck (no jeeps for rent today so I'm in some shoe-box sized compact), back out, and I guess we're done. If the break most open to the swells isnt working, nothing is going to be.

Drive back around the island, listen to the radio (very little reggae, lots of crappy top 40 stuff), get on the ferry, watch three women get fantastically drunk howling at everybody else on the ferry, who howl back.

That's it. No surf, but we've learned a lot: that point will go off on a typhoon swell, no doubt, and the trades arent going to completely blow it out, so it's worth checking when there's a swell, whatever the wind is doing. Not worth bothering on a windswell day, but hey, the forecasts have a little storm wandering towards the Eastern Carribean next week. So not a killer surf location - not bad if you're in the area and see a big storm wandering accross the Carribean.

And that's how it goes - you take the time, make the effort, learn a little, and one day it all comes together... Just not today. Keep looking - it's out there.