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!

sunset sands....

Not sure I ever posted this before since it predates this blog. Filmed by Ben Haworths dad in 20 minutes as the sun went down in Woolacombe, I think in 2007 ish. The board is one of the original few Gulfstream Saunton Foils and was my favourite board for quite a few years!

Konstructor

 

So i just got my first film developed from my Lomo Konstructor . Like all toy camera's the first few rolls are all about working out the idiosyncrasies and there are always hits and misses. On the whole i'm pretty pleased though.

memoir.....

Seems a lifetime ago in some ways but it's only 6 or 7 years since I made a surf film with my mate Ross. Things have changed a lot since then and I think the internet has made the business model we used a little obsolete while the advent of go-pro HD cameras and cheaper more powerful editing software has raised the bar significantly.


I'm still quietly proud of it though.....

flags

 

 Of course this is what you really want to see when you round the corner on a surf trip. Three foot and reeling

hunkered down

Lovely memories of using a tent to shelter tired sun burnt arms from the sun and not other elements!

One of the cooler things about running this blog is the random worldwide connections it creates with  other creative, surf stoked people. Case in point was a recent email from Evan at Travelgrom.com from california whose got a pretty slick looking site based on his passion for travel on a budget, waves and music. Worth clicking through to if you have a fwminutes to spare.

the path.

I remember feeling all Endless summer as i walked along this path through French dunes, crossed the horizon and saw empty small warm beach break in front of me. Not quite Cape St Francis but not a bad substitute for a couple of hours!

I'm actually off to the snowy vistas of Norway again in a week or so, looking forward to some nice mellow snowboarding and hopefully some sneaky fresh pow turns.

Norway is not really high on most peoples bucket lists for snow trips. Most people’s preconceptions are that the mountains are small and it’s really cold, and expensive.

That’s kinda right. It’s certainly a different experience to visiting the alps. There are no towering crags and precipitous roads as you approach, no winding hairpins and heart in the mouth moments as French locals overtake you on blind bends.

It’s more of a snowy wonderland. The last tarmac you see is the runway at Gatwick. The plane lands on snow and all the roads are white. The hills are rolling and pine covered and white as far as the eye can see and you’re just as likely to see locals zoom past you on cross country ski’s as pass on foot.

The resorts themselves are pretty small with a limited vertical drop and it’s not that steep. It’s not a place for motorway skiing or ticking off several places in one day. You’re not sold so far I know.

But…… the snow quality is excellent, pretty much guaranteed. The cold temperatures prevent any kind of freeze thaw freeze cycle like you often get in France so it stays as packed powder that holds a beautiful edge on-piste for ever after a snowfall. I reckon Tahoe is the only other place with such consistency I’ve been. When there are freshies to be had there’s amazing, safe tree runs to be had, which don’t get tracked that quickly because the resorts are pretty quiet out of weekends.

It’s not that cold either really as long as you have a decent set of gloves (mitts are good) and a good jacket. I’m a sucker for a nice down jacket and I’ve been loving my volcom one the last couple of trips. I digress but check out theclymb.com if you are in the US reading this, they have big discounts on ski equipment and other outdoors gear at discounts up to 70% off retail!

The parks are ace too, really well maintained with kickers from tiny up to scary giant size. Quite often they are dotted around at the sides of main runs so easy to hit if you are spending the day with non freestyling family!

And that’s where the real strength of the place comes. It’s a great place for getting your kids stoked on skiing. The instruction is great, their English is better than some Englishmen I’ve met and the resorts are perfect for building confidence in children or that non skiing girlfriend / wife you have coerced into joining you!

It’s not even that expensive, with the euro so strong and the “off the radar” nature of the place it’s a similar cost to going anywhere else.

It’s also a really great, different experience to the classic brits abroad/ party vibe that you get in the big alpine resorts and sometimes doing something different to the taking a low budget flight to Geneva and beyond can be good!

tow the line

I like to think that i'm farly objective in my surfboard reviews. I hope i have moved on from the childlike wonder that used to greet every pretty resin tint (when those things were much less common) and the gushing over every new line and turn and new surfing experience. That said, i'm aware that i'm rarely critical of the boards i buy and borrow to surf. Perhaps a little out of courtesy to others hard work and tightly held views. I like to think though that it's because there aren't many bad boards out there anymore, just stuff that suits some people more than others!

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!

kids in the sweet shop

sunburn

chuckle-bility

Randall and Elsie

Whatever your choice of trousers, corduroy lines never go out of fashion!!

So the other day, i lent my new little mini simmons, the SeaPea to my friend Will. To set the scene, Will is a shortboarder, he's actually a very very good shortboarder in a conventional pointy white thruster sense. He finds logs boring, doesn't like fish and thinks eggs are best confined to breakfast!

I think he wanted to try a sim partly becasue he's seen mine take shape and partly out of curiosity. I'm pretty sure he really just wanted to confirm that they were odd dysfunctional hipster shapes ridden by me and my beardy pals!

He rode it a couple of times, in onshore lumpy 3 foot croyde and in clean lined up 1-2 feet croyde. I'm just going to paste some of his texts to me here

"Oh my god, just surfed it at croyde, that was SO fun!!!!!!"
"It's by no means a shortboard but it went amazingly well in average waves and created speed from nothing!! I need one in my board rack!"

Whats pretty cool about this and the reason i've posted it, is that Will could see the fun in this shape despite coming at it from an entirely different direction and surfing reference points. It blew his preconceptions out of the water and in his words "made a very average day a lot of fun!"

 It's nice to know that someone with much greater small board ability than me, see's the validity in the design for our waves.

More about my board here Jools will make you one here

mobile home

 

The van, specifically the VW t4/t5 and to a lesser extent the Merc vito, hold a special place in UK surf culture. I think perhaps in a way that is different to their place in the rest of europe or the in US where the big pick up truck holds more "beach cool"

Maybe it's to do with our more inclement weather and the more fickle nature of our waves. Whatever the reason, it's a mobile home, kitchen , changing room, board shed, bedroom or sanctuary from the world outside, a good van is an essential to a fully realised British surfing life.

Mine is currently parked up overlooking some sweet French beach break while i ponder which of my toys to play with......

welsh lines

Journeyed from under milk wood to meet lines that travelled from afar.

great expectations...

Surfing is a funny thing sometimes, the most fun sessions can come from the most inauspicious beginnings. Conversely sometimes the expectations of a great session are high and it just doesn't quite deliver.

Last time i rode my Mccallum mford was what i can best describe as a shocker! Lovely 3 foot offshore day but people everywhere, tired arms and i just couldn't get into a rhythm. Everywhere i sat was the wrong spot. I left the water deflated amid others joyous tales of fun waves.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and i sneak off after kids story time to catch the evening high tide glass off. Calling it thigh high would have been charitable and the tide dictated short sections and close outs. I grabbed the Mccallum again on a whim, expecting only the extra excercise of paddling a 5'6 instead of a 9'6 around. How wrong i was, over the course of an hour i hooked into quite a few tiny reelers with sections to race and spray to throw. I rushed home with the fading light feeling more alive and with the fire duly stoked. A timely reminder of the capability of the mini simmons platform to add excitement to junk waves!

Sometimes the most fun comes when you least expect!

planing

Jools hard at work in his shaping cave.

It's hard to explain just how difficult it is to cut a decent shape with a planer (for a newbie like me anyway) The foam is so fragile and the planer so aggressive that the tiniest change in angle or speed is reflected by creating a bumo or worse still a gouge....

The best comparison i can make would be trying to carve sonmething out of florists oasis with a dremel tool! Steady hands and a good eye are the bare minimum.

Hope everyone got some fun fathers day waves over the weekend. There certainly were a lot of people in the water. In the end a bit of patience was rewarded with a slightly smaller but quieter session. I rode my pointy squire log which hasn't been in the water for a while. It's pretty different to a proper log and a nice alternative to a three fin longboard in bigger waves. Despite having the wide point back of center, the roll in the bottom and the flexy fin give it an almost hully feel to the bottom turn. Especially if you get low and crank it over. There's a nice pivoty drive to it's cutbacks and the 17 nose really makes you work for your tip time. It's an unusual but satisfying board to surf.

Monday was a beautifully fun logging wave, small glassy and perfect for the if6was9 log i've been favoring recently. Boots off too!

The rain may be back today but it's my birthday and i'm going surfing!!!!

180 degrees

It's always winter somewhere too!

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.

waypost...

There's sunshine for now outside the window but the eyeball surf reports are not promising. Hopefully the push will whip up a loggable ripple. I'm amping to get wet after a day spent drydocked in classroom and traffic jam yesterday.

In other news, i finally convinced Jools from Gulfstream to borrow and ride my TW bar of soap. It will be interesting to see how he feels about it coming from a 3 fin shortboard background. His current every day board is a 5'5 epoxy shortboard so even at 5'2 the soap is going to feel like a lot of foam!