Surf Shack Bay (Ogmore by sea)

If I were British, I might have said the weather was "not too bad, all things considered!". But luckily, it was not just "not too bad", it was downright awesome on that day in early August. Sun shining, 20+ degrees, refreshing wind. What else do we need? That's a day to go out!

There's a walk along the coast from Llantwit Major to Ogmore, which I read about long time ago and always wanted to do, but I never got around to it. Thus when Nika and Miška (I asked if they introduce themselves in a different way in English, e.g. "Nicole" or "Michelle", but they stay faithful to their Slovak equivalents :)) suggested to make a trip, I knew where to go!

Although no one else wanted to join from our "Cardiff Couchsurfing" group (called Couchsurfing, though half of the people don't even know CS :-P), we were still eligible for a group ticket in National rails! Two is a company, three is a crowd :)

Once in the train, I pulled out a Skyr (Icelandic thick yoghurt), expecting "woow, you have Skyr!" kind of reaction. However, girls had the same for the breakfast, and so I was left to fight it alone, wondering how the hell were we able to have like 2 a day in Iceland with Juro. It was anyway a good breakfast, a good memory, and of course, good protein ^^.

Once in Llantwit Major, we resisted the recommendation of my colleague from day before, who was excitedly telling me about "amazing pub in Llantwit Major". After all, it was just beginning of the day and pubs could wait. What did not wait, however, was the tireless tide - moving water around the globe round the clock. In this area, the tidal effect is one of the biggest in the world, and not only that. That day, the tidal range was one of the highest in the month, with height 11m in the morning and coming down to just 1 meter in the afternoon!

The tide also explains what we've seen a few months before, in Llantwit Major. On one of the cliffs, there was a group of teenagers jumping off to the sea. "How did they know it's deep enough?", I was thinking. The question was soon answered when we met an old couple watching them from a bench nearby. As we found out, they had a grandson there, so they decided to check on him (can't really imagine grandparents in Slovakia watching their grandchildren jumping off cliffs, but everyone's different ^-^). They used to come there often and sometimes the tide would be low - thus they knew what's in the water, or how deep it is when the tide is high.

I took opportunity of the unique combination of a sunny day, high tide and warm water (I mean, 17 degrees - that's about the best you can get!) and jumped off the cliff!

I mean, not off that one, but you know, was still a challenge :-P

That's the cliff from where the teenagers (and then me) were jumping

As we continued, we passed a fortress on the coast ("lovely!", British would say), small forests offering bit of a shade from burning sun or a beautiful huge lighthouse, that seemed to radiate its importance from the ages when ships did not have radars and the light on the horizon was the only thing to save them from wrecking against the razor sharp cliffs on a stormy October night! (a bit of lyrical mood here).

We paused briefly on a tall cliff overlooking the coast and watched the seagull acrobacy. Their gliding and flying moves reminded me of the film Dark blue world and the planes from second world war roaming the airs of south UK. Those were carrying bombs, however, a time long ago, hopefully never to come again...

BLAST! A bomb was dropped and Miška called for cover! Luckily, we just missed it but there were signs of bombs all around us (although, it might have been bits of my unfinished Skyr, but we rather did not try to test!).

We evacuated the area a few minutes after, after making a few selfies and moved on. The coastline is truly magnificent here and as we neared Ogmore, we passed a few beaches that emerged on the low tide, however, now often covered with hundreds of tourists enjoying the day.

This one was quite empty, but that's only cause there was no parking nearby!

We arrived to Ogmore around 4pm, just in time for the lowest tide and I curiously explored the surroundings, so different from when I was here couple months ago, on a high tide and super windy weather! Now the sea gave way to a large sandy beach and even a new island emerged a few hundred meters from the coast! Not to mention the crowds of people all around. Just see for yourself!

17th April, high tide

6th of August. Low tide. The previous picture was taken from the circled area, in the direction of this point!

Where's many people, there's food and thus probably not too coincidentally, we run into a "portable pizzeria", a popular thing in UK, where a compact wood fired oven is attached as a trailer to a van and moved wherever necessary. A bit of work and a stall selling tasty quality pizzas is set-up and ready to go!

I took the chance again - a pizza hunt on the beach, "no neber to!" ("who wouldn't take that!"). The menu is a simple one - three varieties of pizza and something to drink. And that's great - no decision paralysis here and I went straight for Margherita. With buffalo mozzarella, wood fired crust and 6 pounds - that's actually a pretty solid deal! ("no neber to!")

The two guys running the "place" were quite busy and so when I was told "10 minutes", I subconsciously swapped it for "at least 15". However, it really was just 10, though there was 3 other pizzas cooked before ours. Precise estimates is neither common, nor expected when talking to pizza chefs, but it is a bonus point for Surf Shack Bay.

Folding the crust of the pizzas

Watching the preparation, I could not but ask the pizzaiolo about an interesting "crust folding" on every pie. The answer was simply "it's his thing", and that it makes the crust nice and puffy. Interesting. I also think it saves space in the oven and helps for the pizzas to resemble their true "Neapolitan" friends. In any case, as the pizzas got out of the oven, they certainly looked amazing, thanks to the crust, or not :-) .

Once ready and sliced, we chose to add a bit of oregano and chilly flakes. And then, the best part of the pizza hunt follows! If you do wine tasting, you think you know that feeling. But well, actually you don't! Cause this is PIZZA! (damn, I'm hungry here.. :P   )

Anyway... Crust? GREAT! We loved it, it looked beautiful, was just enough soft and crunchy, and the best base for the rest of the pie. Sauce? HM! Definitely tomatoeish experience - that's good and bad. Good that you could feel the sauce has been on a date with tomatoes, or even married a few of them. However, they seem to have forgotten to spice the marriage up! Yes, a bit of chilly flakes helped greatly and those slices were super nice. But on the rest of the pizza you could feel the sauce could do with extra basil, or even some more salt.

On a (subjectively) positive note, there was lots of sauce and together with the mozzarella buffala, they made were a testament to the right choice of Margherita - a simple, yet classic pizza.

All in all, I cannot but recommend Surf Shack Bay. Although the title sounds more as if guys are making wood fired surfs, they know their stuff and made our visit to the beach one big notch more memorable.

And a memorable day it was - thanks girls for the great company and the British-Hungarian couple who took us to Bridgend. Just imagine, we hitched a ride with an actress who's playing with a sister of the woman starring in Adams Family! So basically - we're now famous. Signature on request ^-^

Dough - 9
Ingredients - 8
Sauce - 7
Pizza atmosphere - 5
Atmosphere - 10 (not really "pizza atmosphere", but then, a pizza on the beach is quite something! :))
Service - 8