score draw

Two pictures taken within seconds of each other, one with the lc-a, the other with my pentax digital compact. For once i can't decide if i prefer the analogue or the digital version!

petro cruising

le bistro

At last! i have been surfing and i am really pretty relieved i actually still know how! Really fun to have a couple of small clean logging waves, especially in the sunshine at the weekend. Extra rubber is definately not helping how un paddlefit i feel though!

Yesterday was cold, grey and properly felt like winter. Difficult to leave the house with the prospect of a damp wetsuit in a windchilled car park but well worth it. Couple of fun ones and good to catch up with some faces i haven't seen or a while. Mr Bott was styling as usual on his new bing (levitator) hopefully i can try it and report back soon!

The rest of the week looks small and clean, i just need to work out how i can squeeze time in the shortened daylight hours!

boats@noirmoutier

do you see a theme?

les dunes

where the streets have no name...

well they do......... it's just in french!

a minor disaster...

So in my minds eye this was a cool little set up for a photo of a new addition to the quiver (it's a 5'6 Mccallum Mford just so you know!) All good until i dropped the camera about ten minutes later...... Much of the charm of taking pictures with toy camera's like the holga comes from there cheap build quality yielding quirky images. It also means they are very much basically cheap crap plastic!

So i dropped the camera, lunged for it, nearly grabbed it, watched in slow motion as it bounced off my outstretched hand onto the pavement, inwardly groaned as the back of the camera flew off exposing the nearly finished roll of 35mm to bright daylight...........in the words of the great homer simpson DOH!

Thankfully i only lost a couple of pictures, a few were unscathed and these two i sort of rescued in iphoto. All part of a fairly crappy week where my laptop died taking a load of files with it and i came within an ace of rolling my van but thats another story!

I'm going to write a proper report on the board when i've ridden it more but first impressions are that it's really fun, even in utter junk surf, up and planing early with a really shocking amount of lateral speed with a real positive on rails feel and without the slip slideyness of wider tailed simmons shapes. Oh and it looks beautiful, a real eye pleasing shape with a real organic tactile feel, much like a nice hull has........anyway......

surfcheck..

 

 Even with all the sophisticated ways of predicting and checking the surf, swell and wind from your phone or desktop at work, nothing really beats doing it visually. Even if you have an idea of what you're going to find, the nervous anticipation of glimpsing sections of sea as you near the beach, teasing views with not quite enough scope to reveal the conditions at hand, rounding the last couple of corners to actually eyeball the 

waves........

Sometimes lo-fi is the best way to go

the view from out here....

So yeah maybe we moan about the weather here a lot. Moan about the cold water, the rain, the prevailing westerlies, the crowds of kooks, the windswell. It's easy to get grumpier and grumpier the older you get and the more you think on it.... the grass is always greener. One thing we do have, despite the congested nature of much of the country, is lush green landscapes barely interupted by human hand. Sitting in the line up with a couple of friends, taking it all in on a small day is one of life's simple pleasures. A time honoured antidote to the grumpiness.

bay at the bay

winter randomness

As we start to wave goodbye to winter and say hello to spring (or maybe early summer judging by some of the warmth in the recent sun!), with the anticipation of lighter evenings, small clean waves and shedding the rubber as the water gets warmer, i thought i'd post the last couple of shots from Norway....

goodbye winter, see you round

the troll

It's sunny, warm, the gloves are off (& boots for some hardier than me!) and we've had some fun clean waves............ feels like summer is just around the corner doesn't it folks?

norwegian wood

simple pleasures

For all the obsessing about wave buoys and windspeeds, weather charts and sandbars, for all the agonising over dimensions on your next board, for all the stressing over how long it is since you last surfed, the rushing to create a precious slot to make it to the beach, for all that surfing is and isn't................

it pales in comparison to the simple joys of time with those you love, there can never be enough of that.

a ghost in the machine

Happy New Year Everyone!

I was looking back at my new year post from last year and remembered that the surfer forums had a "best 3 boards of 09" thread running. Although a year has passed, two of my top three haven't changed!

I'm still in love with my 5'8 larry mabile keel fish, i've still yet to have a bad surf on it. In fact on the day the waiting" post picture was taken i think i had my best two shortboard turns ever, on the same righthander on this board.

Longboard wise, the 9'6 jai lee is still the board to beat, just like last year, and it's the log i've ridden most often. Honorable mentions go to the Dano i brought back from Ca and the bing NR2 i've acquired. Both have given some great trips to the tip on their day

The third board does change though....... Having been gifted a 5'8 mini simmons a few months ago, it's been in heavy rotation ever since. So much fun in junk, such a smooth feeling racing down the line. I think it's responsible for more surf related smiles than anything else over the last few months. Although they are very fashionable right now, if you can live with some lateral speed in your surfing instead of vertical ripping i'd wholeheartedly recomend getting on the program!

dunster

castle!

give me back my teddies!

Really happy to have my pictures featured on quality peoples. a couple of weeks ago

sick gull....

Wishthound@appledore

Not entirely sure what the significance of a seagull throwing up in the graffiti is. Seems kinda weird and too urban for a sleepy small place like Appledore. Anyway, Tom definately impressed the two 12 year olds on scooters........"can i have a go on your board mister?"

peter pan complex?

disco fingers in full effect!

heading home