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

Lemon next to the pie..

 

 A little cove near Cayucos, central california. They make AMAZING pie in cayucos!

santa cruz

 

Santa Cruz is rad. It deserves the hype as a surf town with something for everyone and i really enjoyed the couple of days we spent there. I think i've had a soft spot for it ever since i visited with a skateboard in pre-surfer days twenty odd years ago. Reading Dan Duanes "caught inside, a surfers year on the coast" further ingrained it's appeal in my conciousness. For me it encapsulates a lot of what i like about california. It's a little more "real", quieter and less plastic than some areas further south. The people are friendly, it has a wealth of right hand point breaks. The surrounding coast and countryside are greener and a little more rugged than SoCal, and there are more breaks in the urban continuum along the coast. It feels like an "outdoors" kind of place in the same way that the lake district does over here.

I'd love to go back soon, i could definately live there

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.

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.

big sur

The drive from Carmel at the south end of monterey through Big Sur and down to Hearst Castle is just jaw droppingly beautiful. It's difficult to keep your eyes on the highway as it twists it's way from headland to headland for 50 miles or so. It's impossible not to keep screeching to a halt every couple of miles to drink in the next stunning vista that just revealed itself. This is maybe halfway down, mid afternoon and one of many such photo stops.

roadside gems.....

With a summer south swell, Highway 1 on the mid-californian coast is peppered with little gems. This is just north of Cayucos and brought our tyres screeching to a halt. It's not in the guide books and it would be easy to miss but it was a fun right hander with a pretty much flat water paddle out from the little bay in the foreground. Long period swell and glassy conditions with a little bit of kelp to smooth the chop certainly helped too

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.

rocking out

This is Morro rock, in Morro bay, home to a good beach break and a lot of noisy sea birds. We only really passed through on our way south but i scored head high glassy peaky waves on my Seapea early one morning.

Seemed like the seapea was the perfect second board to take with me, short enough to be fun in the faster peakier beach break waves but flat enough and with enough foam to make the most of small summer swell. This and a session at "the hook" in Santa Cruz were two of the best sessions ive had on this board.

#midlengthcrisis

 

The more social media aware of you will have noted that i finally took delivery of my 40th birthday present a few weeks ago. Ordered in June through Nineplus in Braunton it was mos definately worth the wait. It's a 6'10 Howard Special mini egg from Hawaiian Pro Designs (i.e Takayama) I think it is one of the most visually stunning boards i've owned with a stunning glass job and a beautifully refined shape. This is no magic carpet or beginers mini-mal, its a proper californian egg from the lineage of Skip Frye and friends. #midlengthcrisis indeed

It's taken a few weeks to get it in the water in some semi decent waves so i've held off posting until i had some decent initial thoughts to post. 

In one word........smooth

First impressions are that it is just unbelievably smooth. The bottom shape is roll into panel V so it's not a board for speed generation in junk. It's a board for swooping around and drawing smooth carves. It paddles in early and has a beautiful, slightly hull-like projecting bottom turn. It trims fast in a high line and comes off the top far spritelier than it's size suggests - theres not huge amounts of foam hidden in there so the swing weight is not that great.

I havent ridden a board with 3 fins for a long time, all my logs being single fin and shortboards are all twinnies or quads. It's also probably got the narrowest tail of any of my boards too. It turns beautifully, far more controlled and carvey than the wider tailed twins, far less pivoty than a single fin. It also carries speed through the apex of a cutback far better than a single fin egg would - i often find they have a tendancy to lose speed throughout the turn, especially without a nice flexy fin.

All in all, i'm super stoked with another keeper!

cadillac smooth

Just beautiful surfing on perfect glassy waves. I haven't owned an egg for a long time but drawing lines like that sure looks fun!

all for one

 

Ready to log some tip time!

Here's a thing......... When you load your board on your car roof, do you put it fin first or nose first?

In the UK i'd say everyone goes nose first (with the exception of those kooks who stick it up through the sunroof etc!) and there would be some sniggering behind hands in car parks if you did anything else.

Cross the pond though and California is exclusively fin facing forward, at least if you want to swing into the car park looking cool and correct. weird eh?

Thankfully my boards travel inside a van so thats one less detail to agonise over in order to maintain my aura of hipster cool ;-)

Speaking of cool, Gulfstream now have a 5'2 SeaPea mini simmons available to demo, call them on 01271 815490 and get your shred on (brah!)

sock it to 'em boy

MITCH ABSHERE PUNKS & POETS from Stance on Vimeo.

I've always liked Mitch Abshere, both his style in and out of the water, and for his honesty.  I've never spoken to him although i know he's friends with people i know.

A long time ago i read a interview with him in the long defuct Longboard Magazine. Mitch was just on the up after a pretty deep dive through partying too hard to a DUI and a stint in jail. While i'm not religious at all, it's clear that discovering a faith really helped Mitch get his life back on track. While i'm sure Mitch has been a jerk to some one cant help but respect someone who has put his life back together like he has.

Since then seems like he's in a good place and his captain fin co stuff is always interesting. Cool shops too, kinda like the original revolver but in California.

It might be a little middle aged to get excited about socks (least it's not slippers) but Stnce make some comfy, hard wearing pairs in a massive selection of quirky styles. Worth treating your feet to!

Mitch Abshere -What We Ride from Moose Huerta on Vimeo.

lest we forget

Tudor is rightfully venerated for being hugely influential in the second rise of traditional style longboarding but in current times it's easy to forget the contribution made by Robert "wingnut" weaver.

Back when Tudor was still all about pink wetsuits and tri fin longboards and Knost still thought his dad was the coolest surfer in the world, wingnut was cruising blackies on a single fin, taking his style cues from edwards and company. He did a huge amount to popularise riding longboards, particularly in a traditional style and not least by riding a log in everything the endless summe 2 shoot threw at him

It could in fact be argued that wingnut was one of the direct catalysts to tudor seeking out single fins and black wetsuits as the 90's wore on. Sure his personality and ceaseless self promotion grated with many as did his latterly association with surftech but he should still be remembered by todays loggers for his influence, despite not having the same "cool quotient" of others.

Oh and he still has one of the best drop knee cutbacks in the business!

the sun always shines on tv

Seems like i'm not allowed to embed the video i had lined up for this post. It's called anecdote by louis english and it's pretty cool, hopefully its still here. If not you'll have to make do with a suitably apocalyptic phone pic of Saunton, moments before another summer downpour!


showing my age somewhat with the title of this post eh?

Old but new footage of messrs Knost and Mell from the land where the sun never sleeps....

smooth 'n' casual

2 Sessions x Scotty Stopnik from Jack Belli on Vimeo.

In a nutshell, this is why i love surfing in California. Sun, sunsets and glassy peelers, artfully recorded by Jack Belli who is a super talented photographer and runs a rad little blog here

could it be magic?

Most people will be familiar with the concept of having a "magic board". It's a much used phrase in connection with the ASP world tour and most surfers will feel like they have owned one at some point over the course of their surfing life.

The board in the picture above is one of mine. I pulled it out of the shed the other day and paddled out on it for the first time in ages. Sure enough, once i'd dodged the crowd enough to slide into a head high reeler, my feet found the sweet spot and i started a session full of smooth carves and cutbacks that only a true twin keel will give. Although the design has moved from being "new" (again) into being almost a standard "summer shape" they really are versatile boards and will handle most things the UK can throw at you.

This one is a 5'8 classic keel shaped by Larry Mabile that i brought back from the US four or five years ago (back in the glory days of $2 to the pound!). It's got a more 70's influenced template and bottom contour than the heavily concave bottomed ones that the likes of gulfstream and christenson make.  Larry is not that well known world wide but incredibly well respected around san diego and is one of the best fish shapers you could go to having learnt his craft under Skip Frye at the G&S label many moons ago. He also makes a lovely version of skip's eagle gliders but i think even virgin would baulk at flying one of those back!

I can honestly say i've never had a bad surf on this board, ever! In fact from where i'm typing it is the first "magic board" i've owned. The Bar of soap could be the second, but i digress....... It got me thinking about how much of the magic is in the shape and how much is in the eyes of the beholder? I mean how much of my love for it is in the fact that it suits me, my surfing and the waves i surf beautifully, how much is in the foam? Would it be magic for anyone, everyone?

Proponents of moulded or computer shaped boards will rave about how the technology allows mass production of a perfect prototype with all the flaws ground out by testing but it isn't entirely true since either process only replicates to a certain level of accuracy and the hand finishing, whether by surfer or chinese labor is still influential. In fact, i've heard quite a few people voice the opinion that it's the imperfections in a hand shape/ finished shape that will make a board magic and another of seemingly identical shape a dog.

For the record my fish was a custom order of a "model" Larmo has made for years, i have no idea if a computer was involved!!

solvang

Solvang is kind of a weird place. It's west of santa barbara and inland of the ranch and was founded by Danish settlers in the early twentieth century. Those settlers took their heritage VERY seriously and so the whole town has an "olde worlde" danish theme complete with faux old buildings and windmills! It's kind of like going to a bit of disney land but weirder since it's not actually part of a theme park and (i think) devoid of irony!

It's kind of fun all the same. If you happen to find yourself there, there's a bakery that makes, in the words of Mr Kipling' "exceedingly good cakes!"