On home surf

'I'M GONNA need some gloves, man," says Federico Pilurzu, shivering at the thought of paddling out into the frigid waters of the Pentland Firth. Pilurzu, a Costa Rican, and his buddy Gony Zubizarreta from Spain, are browsing the racks at the Tempest surf shop, the focal point of the Thurso surf scene.

From the outside, the Tempest may not seem like much – just a wooden shack with a corrugated iron roof – but it is stocked with everything a serious coldwater surfer could ever need, from boards and wetsuits to neoprene hoods, gloves and booties.

Zubizaretta has surfed in Scotland before, so knows what to expect, but Pilurzu has never dipped a toe anywhere quite this chilly in his life.

"Back home I'm used to surfing in boardshorts," he says. "There, the biggest problem is protecting yourself from the sun."

It's day one of the O'Neill Highland Open, the most prestigious surfing competition in the UK, and the coldest and most northerly on the pro circuit. Some 144 surfers have arrived from all over the world to battle it out for the $70,000 (£35,000) prize purse, but unfortunately there's no swell yet, not even a ripple, so most of them are milling around town, killing time.

With their deep suntans and assortment of foreign accents, they're not exactly difficult to spot. In the foyer of the Royal Hotel, two women of a certain age break off their conversation about whether to have chips or boiled potatoes with lunch to watch a posse of bronzed American boardriders saunter past. In the town's main shopping precinct, two Aussie surfers exchanging loud "G'days" draw quizzical looks from passers-by.

Not that the people of Thurso aren't happy about this influx of exotic young people to their town. On the whole, they seem rather delighted.

Kay Rosie, owner of the Fish Bowl fish shop, has lived in Thurso all her life. She reckons surfers started making the pilgrimage here in significant numbers about ten years ago, as word of the fabled reef break at Thurso East started to spread. These strange new visitors certainly didn't hurt business in the town, but the advent of the Highland Open, in 2006, has had a real impact.

"The Open's great for the local economy," she says. "The cafes are busier, the hotels are busier and, of course, it's nice seeing lots of new faces in the town."

It's estimated that the event is worth around £450,000 to Thurso every year, before even taking into account the positive impact it has made on the town's image. It is made possible by co-sponsors O'Neill, Swatch and Red Bull, who between them fund the event to the tune of £400,000.

The owner of the Tempest surf shop, Helen MacInnes, has more reason to be cheerful about the Open than most. "It's been like having two Christmases at once this year," she says. "I'd just like to say a big thank you to Terminal Five at Heathrow, because they've lost a lot of the surfers' stuff. Obviously it's a bummer for the surfers, but for me it's been the difference between (professional] life and death, because they're buying up all my wetsuits, boots and gloves."

MacInnes has run the Tempest for four years, and during that time she's seen the attitude of Thurso's local surfers towards the contest change from initial suspicion to laid-back acceptance.

"The first year of the contest, there was a definite sense of panic," she says. "It was fear of the unknown. They didn't know if O'Neill were going to come up and completely expose Thurso – which has always been a bit of a secret – or if the contest was going to benefit the local surfing community. Most of them were falling on the side of 'it's going to be a disaster'.

"But once the (first] contest had been and gone, I think they saw it was a good thing. They sorted the car park out, and the event really inspired a lot of the local kids."

The area around Thurso is blessed with some of the best surf spots in Europe, and because the Highland Open is a mobile contest, it is able to take advantage of all of them.

Thurso East is the premier break in the area – a long, winding right-hander (a wave that breaks from right to left as you look at it from the beach) – that can be as good as anywhere in the world on its day. And then there's Brims Ness, a short, sharp shock of a wave a few miles to the west that's ideal for the purposes of a surfing competition in that it picks up almost any swell going.

Professional surfer Sam Lamiroy, one of only a handful of Brits in the event, sums up the differences between the two.

"Brims is like a really good Chinese takeaway," he says. "It's like a quick MSG hit, whereas Thurso East is more like an expansive, elaborate six-course meal with all the trimmings.

"They each have their place. If anything, surfing in the past few years has gone a lot more towards shallow slabs like Brims. Five or six years ago, a perfect wave was somewhere like Jeffrey's Bay in South Africa, which is a lot like Thurso East, but with the advent of places like Shipsterns Bluff (in Tasmania] and Teahupo'o (in Tahiti], people are looking more for these heavy, thick, barrelling waves, and that's where Brims Ness comes into its own."

THE SURF HAS picked up. It's not huge – "about shoulder high," according to Lamiroy, just back from an early-morning surf check – but nevertheless the contest has been called on at Brims.

Just before the competition gets underway, a little piece of surfing history takes place. Hawaiian legend and former world surfing champion Sunny Garcia takes to the water for a quick warm-up – his first ever surf in Scotland.

The waves have been OK up to this point, but nothing to write home about. A few minutes after Garcia paddles out, however, some much bigger sets come rumbling through. It's almost as if Brims is saying "welcome to Scotland" to one of surfing's favourite sons.

On his first wave, Garcia carves a couple of tight, spray-flinging turns and, on his second, he tucks into a sweet little barrel. One more wave and he's back on the beach, heading back to his hire car.

Did he enjoy his first surf in Scotland?

"There are a couple of spots like this where I'm from, so this suits me just fine," he says. "I'm not afraid of the reef."

True to his hard-man image, Garcia isn't wearing booties like everyone else. How's he coping with the cold?

"It's not too bad," he says. "The water's a little colder than I'm used to, but it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I can't wait to surf out here when it's a little bigger – I've seen the photos, so I know how good it can get."

The competition eventually gets underway at 10:30am, and the first heat features the only Scottish surfer in the draw, Fraserburgh's Mark Cameron. In order to qualify for the Open, Cameron had to win the Scottish Championships earlier this month. He's entered only two competitions in the past three years, so he says he doesn't fancy his chances against touring pros who surf in contests week in, week out. As it turns out, though, he does his country proud.

Heats at Thurso last for half an hour, and competitors have all the waves they ride scored out of ten by a panel of judges. They can surf as many waves as they want, but only their best two scores will count, so the pressure is on to "go big or go home".

Beyond this, the rules get pretty technical, but as a general guide, the most points are awarded to the surfer performing the most explosive manoeuvres in the most critical part of the wave. In other words, the guy carving big turns right under the falling lip should score more than the guy hopping around on the shoulder (the flat, safe part). Tube rides, or barrels, where the surfer rides inside a breaking wave, score highest of all.

Cameron is up against Jean Sebastien Estienne from France, Felix Messias from Brazil and David Mailman from the US. Estienne and Felix quickly move into first and second, with the Frenchman surfing particularly strongly. Only the top two surfers in the heat will progress to the next round, so Cameron finds himself playing catch-up.

He nabs one or two decent rides, but with ten minutes to go, he still needs a 5.5 score to move into second place. After a bit of a lull, he takes off on a solid six-footer, thinks about pulling into the barrel as the wave starts to hollow out in front of him but then opts to play safe and skate around the section. It's a great wave by normal standards, but the judges are not impressed, and he stays in third.

With just a couple of minutes to go, another lump appears on the horizon. As the wave lurches on to the reef, Cameron hops to his feet, drops down its face and, this time, ducks under the lip. He's so deep in the tube that, if he makes it out, he should easily get into the next round.

Sadly, though, Mother Ocean has other ideas: the wave shuts and Cameron is slammed on to the almost-dry reef. At the buzzer he's still in third – out of the contest and left to reflect on what might have been.

The Highland Open runs until 30 April. For more information and to watch a live webcast from the event see www.oneilleurope.com/highlandopen. For information on where you can try surfing in Scotland log on to www.visitscotland.com/adventure

HIGHLAND OPEN

Every year, the best 46 surfers in the world compete for six-figure prize money on the World Championship Tour (WCT). To break into this elite club, aspiring champs must finish in the Top 15 of professional surfing's second tier, the World Qualifying Series (WQS).

The Highland Open is one of only eight "six star prime" contests on the 47-event circuit, offering maximum points and prize money.

Heats usually last for half an hour. Surfers can ride as many waves as they like; only their best two scores will count. Scores are awarded by a panel of five judges.

SURFING SCOTLAND: A HISTORY

1875 Princess Victoria Ka'iulani Cleghorn – the first known Scottish surfer – was born in Honolulu in 1875 to Princess Miriam Likelike, a sister of the reigning king of Hawaii, and a prosperous Scottish businessman called Archibald Scott Cleghorn.

1966 Sandy Mathers, Graham Carnegie, Brian Morgan and Dave Killoh build a wooden surfboard and become the first known people to surf in Scotland when they take it out in small waves off Aberdeen.

1968 Andy Bennetts pioneers surfing at Pease Bay, near Edinburgh.

1969 Willie Tait takes to the waves off Fraserburgh after bringing a surfboard home from a visit to California.

1973 New Zealander Bob Treeby discovers the world-class surf breaking in and around Thurso.

2006 Scotland hosts its first major international surf contest, the O'Neill Highland Open.