doho days.....

I think Doheny is probably the spot that ive surfed most in California, mainly through it's convnience to the a couple of the condos we've stayed in. It kind of gets a bad rep amongst the wider surf world for being fat, slow and busy but its a fun wave with a mellow crowd and some really good longboarders across several generations. This particular sunday it was baking on the beach and busy in the water with glassy head high sets rolling through in boardshort temperature water. A classic californian beach day shared with the three G's (thats you Threadills! :-))

cruisers

wait for the hook....

The next installment of views from california. This is a glassy set wave peaking up at The Hook, just south of Pleasure point in Santa Cruz. Lovely short paddle out in giant lulls through kelp beds then slightly overhead reeling right handers section chasing down the point. This particular morning was unusually quiet compared to other times i checked it. The kelp was so thick in places you could feel it pulling at your fins and leash, alomost enough to pull you out of the wave at times. It sounds weird but you could almost imagine getting tied up in the fronds underwater when you duck dived or wiped out. It was too fast for a log, i rode the seapea but even that had a little bit too much foam. My friend Matt from SF loves this wave on a fish and i can really see it being a great board selection.

a devon terrier.....

George with all the beach essentials! Thats my old Dano Old pleasure which has found an appreciative new home with Mr Barrett. I loved the shape but always found it had a little bit too much heft for my diminutive size to man handle in our beach break waves. It suits George to a tee and i always enjoy watching him pilot it through a busy saunton line-up

film still rules / love c street!

Much a i like the immediacy and convenience of having a camera and editing software in my iphone shaped trouser pocket, shooting film is still the best. Manipulating an instagram picture this much might seem contrived and yet this is just a straight 120 film scan from my holga complete with light bleed and weird colout cast from the cross processing. I love the fact that you never know exactly how the picture is going to turn out until you scan the negative.

I'm pretty stoked on this one. It's from the county fairground parking lot in Ventura at the top of the C street point, somewhere i surfed quite a few times on this trip. Although the Santa Barabara/ Rincon area is littered with right hand points, most of them only properly wake up in winter when the swells come from the north. In summer, C street is the go for many locals and it is a really fun wave on a log when its small or a fish when its bigger. Despite the crowd, it's pretty mellow in the water and usually has multiple sections / take off spots to thin the pressure on the sets.

As with most of the waves i surfed, even on days that the locals considered sub-par, it was better than 99% of the waves i surf at home.

a pleasure

This is probably my favorite photo from our Californian trip, taken in Santa Cruz at about 8 am from the sidewalk above The Hook at the south end of pleasure point. I was still dripping wet from a glassy headhigh session on the Seapea, avoiding the thick kelp beds and chasing and racing perfectly shaped right handers down the point.

I've never surfed in such a thick layer of kelp before. It's weird paddling through it, you feel a little like its going to grab you as you duck dive and hold you under and it pulls at your fins as you take off. Like all of the california coast, it's beautiful and having a couple of sea otters breakfasting just outside the line up only added to the picture.

Tumbling.....

Tickets for the second ever Somersault festival at Castle Hill in North Devon are well and truly out. It's a cracking line up this year and should be a whole heap of fun if last year is anything to go by. It really feels like they have built on last years success and this year they have, amongst others, Laura Marling, Passenger, Bombay Bicycle lub and Crystal Fighters as well as legends Jimmy Cliff and Norman Jay.

It should be good!

In the meantime, feast your eyars on Laura Marling's first album. It's a really beautiful record. Top pop fact is that her band at this time contained some of Mumford and Sons before they "made it"

fish scales and tall tales

 

What with all the SeaPea related excitement, i hadn't ridden a keel fish for ages until the other day. Pretty much on a whim i paddled my 5'8 mabile out on a tiny day, really way too small for anything but a log. It felt tiny and thin compared to a mini simmons despite being half a foot longer. I'd be lying if i said it was an epic session but there was a lot of satisfaction from generating speed and getting a couple of turns in on a tiny gutless wave. In summer everything is fun right?

cup 'o' joe

 

A surf check is better with coffee in hand.

benched

 

This could be the most photographed seat in North Devon. I don't think ive ever actually sat in it. I'm usually in too much of a rush to get my wetsuit on, especially when the view looks like this!

Winter hasn't been kind to the sand below though. At low tide there's a big lagoon that needs to be waded through or paddled across to reach the breakers. It's rippy too and two weeks ago BGA and i watched some learners (in a lesson i might add) get blown off the sewer pipe and need to be rescued. The helicopter got called but thankfully wasn't needed. 

The next day i watched two kids get swept out in the rip at hightide saunton and need to be paddled back in, one on a supermarket bodyboard, one on a shortboard. Scary for them and lucky that those in the water noticed! Saunton is usually really safe but the winters storms have changed the sand somewhat and it's not fully back to normal yet! With the holiday crowds around, please keep your eyes open, especially on the beaches with no flags!

abandoned

 

Golden rays from a dying sun

On the subject of Sea Pea's, Gulfstream have a really professional looking new website up here. I know i'm slightly biased but i genuinely think they are consistently producing some of the best boards in the country right now and have been for a few years! There are some great little video's of Jools explaining the different shapes on there too. I particularly enjoyed watching the Sea Pea one (somewhat predictably!). I've got a real kick out of introducing jools to the mini simmons idea and seeing how much excitement and enthusiasm its brought him. That comes across really well in the video.

On the same page, i got chatting to someone in the water the other day who was riding a seapea. I played the dumb but interested surfer and didn't declare my interest. It was really cool to hear how much this guy was loving the shape and how much of an eye opener this little oblong from left field had been. In fact he had bought one based on his friends positive experiences.

If you've read this blog regularly you'll know i've been extolling the virtues of the mini simmons platform in UK waters for a few years. People are getting it now!

a car park ritual.....

 

Shooting the breeze while car park faffing.  A classic male pleasure no matter whether it's pre or post surf, ride, fishing, footy, whatever! To quote a book i read recently "one of the last bastions of masculinity in an increasingly feminized world!" Maybe a little strong but...

the social....

 

Summer may bring the crowds but it does bring people out of the woodwork too.  Sharing story with old friends in the line up after a winter of semi hibernation with everyone chasing their own little bit of warmth. There's a sense of community and belonging and a satisfaction therein.

stripey socks

I have a kind of love hate relationship with board socks, especially when it comes to getting them onto a longboard. They are worth it when you cant park outside your house like me and a quiver approach means carrying a couple of boards a couple of hundred metres! I say carrying but given the weight of most of my logs it's more like the staggering of a semi drunk! A central village location has its perks and it's disadvantages!

The forecast isn't looking too special for the next few days, mostly short period windswell. Time to get back on the bike and dream of better days. It's a shame as i've just been watching two of my favorite vimeo clips (here and here) and getting all stoked on DP's style and surfing my if6was9 log thats similar to his board in the clips. (a slimmed down semi pig with not much foam and a big greenough flex fin!)

i am not a number....

Plenty of you will recognise this as the view of the harbour at clovelly as you risk life and limb negotiating the wet cobbles downwards. There's a semi secret wave hereabouts but thats a different story.

Clovelly itself is lovely in a cute devon way but whenever i visit, i cant help but feel it would be a slightly weird place to live. If you haven't been, it's a village wholly privately owned and the inhabitants all rent their properties from the estate. It's an old fishing village with a long history but now almost operates as a kind of real life theme park with a visitor centre and car park at the top and paid entry for tourists.

It always makes me think of the old 60's tv series "the prisoner"............ you are number 6