Aritz Aranburu, on the other hand, is still alive, as is the Canarian dusk. Photo: Pacotwo/WE. Words by Gary Browningstone.

The Dawn Patrol aka The Dawnie aka The Early has been declared officially deceased. The Late aka The Evening Sesh aka The Duskie (why does no one call it that???) has won. I went for a dawnie the other day, and 8 things perturbed me about it.

1. I woke up an hour too early, 05.30 instead of 06.30, for no reason. That was the very first fuck up.
2. I had breakfast and watched some of the adult channels on Sky, they still had tits out as it was 04.30 UK time. The trouble is, if you eat a huge bowl of oats you’re too full, but if you don’t, you might wish you had… decisions.
3. He was a bit late and I waited outside 15 mins at the end of my drive. Even though it wasn’t raining, I got damp.
4. We got there and there was a car there. Now, if you rock up for an evening surf (or any) and there is only 1 car in the car park, you think, “Fabulous!”. But rock up in the dark at 6.45am in the French forest and there is a car of surfers already there you feel a deep, bitter resentment for your brotherman.
5. As we summitted the dune we saw… nothing. It was thick fog. We waited on the beach half an hour for it to clear.
6. We surfed about 20 mins when I suddenly, really needed a poo. Has that ever happened on an evening sesh? Never. More dudes had rocked up, meaning I couldn’t even go at the water’s edge, I had to run up the beach. It was a monster.
7. When the fog fully cleared we realised the tide was too low. We surfed for two hours and it got quite crowded before it got good-ish. When it got good, we got out, disgruntled.
8. I got home at 11.30, six hours after waking up. It’s a 15 min drive and we surfed two hours. How does that work? I spent the rest of the day fatigued and grumpy.

Fuck the dawnie.