from out of the darkness

 

For reasons best known to the gods of Toy cameras, this whole roll came out disappointingly dark and it was only the skills of the guys at Peak imaging that rescued a few shots. This one is from the lot at Doheny. Big pick up trucks and beautiful logs, two of my favorite things about california

pensive......

BGA strikes his best catalogue pose while I lie panting on the grass after he lent me his spare bike then me cycle up a steep hill back in may. Jesting aside I owe Al big thank you's for lending me his old cannondale so i could find a new way of scaring myself/ having fun on those many crap surf days we seem to have suffered this summer! It's just about kept me sane and in some semblance of fitness.

 

It's wet and wild out there again today and it seems like we've gone straight to winter again. Almost seems like we've just had one season of grey wetness all year. I feel like i've hardly surfed over the last month or so and my stoke is at a low ebb from a surfing point of view. Thank goodness for alternative entertainment! There is some hope on the horizon, if the wind forecast holds and the logs might just get dusted off at the weekend.

 

In other news, the new iphone 5 is pretty cool and more importantly doesn't randomly crash at annoying moments like my old 3. Hopefully i can waste some time on it later watching the quik pro from france. Wow thats a heavy beachbreak. When a surfer of jeremy flores calibre is visibly shaken after a wipeout/hold down you know there's a lot of water moving around!

bonne anniversaire

Happy Birthday to my little bean!

just add sprockets

Turn the volume up, close your eyes and chill to the honeyed sounds of Real Estate.....

sundowner

A date for your diaries, Bing Copeland and hopefully Matt Calvani from Bing surfboards will be around the village on the weekend of the 15th / 16th september. I'm not entirely sure of the details yet but there is supposed to be a demo day at saunton on the saturday morning and something happening in conjunction with the surf museum on the sunday. Keep an eye on the Nineplus, Trim surfboards and surf museum websites for details!

hut, hut, hut

Possibly now one of the most photographed sites in North Devon! Full marks to Jules for selecting such bright colours!

I wonder if beach huts are a british thing? I cant remember noticing them on my limited foreign beach experience. I will continue my research from a french beach break perspective this week, hopefully in sunshine and better swell than Portugal provided.

Vive La France!

nippers

At the risk of being controversial........ I've never quite seen the point of surf lifesaving clubs. It all seems a lot too much like a serious proper sport to me with all the effort of paddling out without the earnt fun of riding waves afterwards. In fact there never seems to be much fun involved. Of course that's probably me being curmudgeonly and cynical in my (approaching) old age.

I always thought it might be a good thing for my daughter to get involved with when she was old enough, teach her confidence in the sea etc but my limited experience so far hasn't done much to temper my initial misgivings. It's all taken very seriously and competitively even at 7 it seems and that doesn't fit with us. I'm thinking i'll just keep taking her surfing myself where i can make sure she's having fun and not worrying about how fast she can race round a flag.

flotsam...

 

and bexon!

douglas e powell

 

 The exceedingly talented, Mr Douglas E Powell. Acoustic singer songwriter tinged with americana, english folk and melancholy. Wholly deserving of your attention!

gul

So after a brief lull in swell and wind hereabouts, it's back to some solid groundswell and breezy conditions again. Almost all my surfs recently have seem to have been battling some kind of strong wind, whether onshore or offshore and as usual i've not had the time to seek shelter on the bigger days. Summer's mellow sessions feel long gone and winter feels just around the corner.

 It made a nice change then earlier in the week to slide into some unexpectedly fun thigh high glass at low tide croyde of all places. Even at that size there's some speed in the wave and getting up on the nose and back requires some deft footwork, especially as it tends to be quite A-framed at lower tides. I took the pointy squire log in and i have to say, in the type of wave it is built for (i.e hollower and fast), it really lit up, light enough to feel responsive not tracky from the back as it zipped along in trim and really solid despite it's narrow nose on the tip.

Having headed beachwards with little expectation of a dip, an hour, alone in the line-up in the fading sun brought big smiles.

 In other news, i tried on one of the samples of the new Nineplus Hasu chest zip suits this week.
All black with a subtle gold logo, it features the lightest, stretchiest single lined yamamoto i've seen. Really looking forward to mine arriving in a couple of weeks now!

on the line.....

from little acorns......

 

big oak trees grow.

Happy Fathers Day to my Dad and fathers everywhere.

To my little bean, i'm proud to be your Dad,  i hope i've been a good enough one this year.

You light me up.

on the rocks....

Local foul weather "go to" spot. Sadly a case of looking better from the shore than the line up. Maybe it's a symptom of my addiction but it still felt better to paddle out and prove the wind was too strong than leave without surfing and later convince myself (erroneously) i drove away from an epic little session!

tools of the trade