Friday 09th November. Here's the story that made the BBC 10 o'clock news, well basically f**k all else happend from this once in 50 year north sea storm surge. Some great footage was captured by the Essex Police helicopter, dont worry if you didnt see it as I'm sure it will be played for years to come on those Flying Cops, or luck escape type programs.
Any way here's a brief run down of the days events. Local surfers check out Joss a couple of hours before high tide. With the tide already looking too high and knowing the Joss rip would pull them from right to left pretty quickly, also with this massive high tide it would be into the cliffs with no way out. No one was keen to give it a go.
Everyone opts to surf Viking, a few clean waves were had but the bay was to deep for only but the biggest sets to break.
So back to Joss, the car park was now packed with MagicSeaWeeders and DFLs and other spectators. It looked a lot cleaner now and the tide had turned, this was deceptive though as out the back it was pretty messy the left to right drag was stong particularly with the cross offshore wind at 30 - 40 mph. Some good waves were had. Then two surfers of relatively little experience were dragged out of site and around the headland. They managed to climb to safety onto a part of an old sea defence at the bottom of the cliff.
The coast guard was alerted. Another very experienced surfer and one time Joss Bay lifeguard was also caught in the rip and was dragged out of the bay. Soon two lifeboats were in attendance but due to the size of the waves were unable to rech the starnded surfers. The police helicopter was circling and the coast guard cliff rescue team were setting up in the cabbage patch on top of the cliff preparing to winch up the stranded surfers. The first two surfers were winched up, the third made his own way back after the tide started to drop. Everyone was luckily ok.
