sunset

It's been a while since i watched the sun set from the line up but the last couple of weeks of waves have treated me to some beautiful waves and gorgeous skies. This time, glassy shoulder high sets with just the seapea and one other for company.

keepers...

There was a thread on the Magic seaweed forum a while ago about keepers, those boards you will never sell. Thinking about it i'm pretty fickle, there are a few boards that i was sure i'd never get rid of which went to make way for supposedly bigger and better things. That said, there are a few in my quiver that have survived the periodic culls and that i'm still really fond of.

Ask me again this time next year and who knows but currently...

5'2 Gulfstream SeaPea by me!!

5'2 Tyler Warren bar of soap
5'6 Jeff mcCallum mford

Both rare, both beautiful, both fly! The McCallum has the best laminate ever, a signed, defaced Dollar Bill.

9'4 if6was9 mod log by Neil Randall, my current beau for logging and the board in the pic above. Based on Dane Petersons logs with a greenough fin. Super fun off the tail and super good on the nose in steeper waves. It's pretty much where current "cutting edge" longboard design is right now.

9'6 classic Malibu jai lee noserider by Peter White, such a good noserider it's almost cheating!

dharma bums

We had a fun little weekend swell hereabouts, not too busy and fun size. The water has definately dropped a degree or two though. A slightly optimistic wetsuit choice on saturday left me shivering outside the van a couple of hours later. Great to see a couple of seapea's in the water. Looked like they were giving as much fun as mine did on saturday!

In the spirit of sharing the seapea stoke, i managed to finagle a few waves on Thom's Bing Dharma on saturday then a whole session in fun shoulder high beachie on sunday using BGA's new dharma. Both were 5'8

Just in case you are curious, here are my semi-learned thoughts! First thing i noticed was how much more foiled it was than i expected. I had kind of imagined the dharma to be on the mini sim side of the fish but that isn't the case at all. Although there's plenty of foam under the chest, it's really (nicely) thinned out at the rails and nose. The rocker is eally flat and the 5'8 paddled beautifully early into the clean zippers on offer. The other thing that immediatly struck me was the depth of the single concave, you could almost feel the base curving upwards under your fingers as you grabbed the rails to sit up or duck dive.

Once into a wave it felt a lot more "neutral" than i expected, more like a shortboad that wants some input from the rider rather than a simmons or fish that needs guiding but goes immediatly towards its own characteristic line. The tail feels narrower than it is and almost disappears beneath you allowing you to direct with force wherever you want and without having to push or fight to break a line. This shortboard style nature translated to easy backhand surfing and a really fun couple of hours.

That said, it is very fast laterally and will trim past sections almost without the need to pump. I'm sure cheater fives would be possible if you were so inclined..

Not at all the board i was expecting but a really great shape. One that i think perhaps likes a bit of shape and isn't quite the mush buster that the outline photos might suggest. It felt like a quad fish that you could really drive around and get up in the lip - i made a couple of late timed floaters i had absolutley no business keeping my feet on! If you normally ride shortboards i think it might be an easy transition, it's definately more on that side of the spectrum than a loggers shortboard.

Definately one to snaffle another few waves on in the future!

p.s. kerouac = genius

kids in the sweet shop

vive la france

Not far from the beaten track but still so unspoilt. Semi rural france is beautiful. The waves get pretty good too!

just like dunlop

 

Rare example of me on the other side of the lens, frame grabbed from Joel during one of those fading light, making the most of it sessions. Friends in the water bringing far more fun that it looked from the water's edge

Introducing The Konstruktor - The World's First Build-It-Yourself 35mm SLR Camera from Lomography on Vimeo.
Might have to put one of these on my letter to santa!

sunburn

180 degrees south

I love the beach early in the morning, you can walk for miles and see only your own footprints, hear only your own breaths and think with a clear mind while the world is waking up.