boats@boscastle

beach huts.........

don't just sit there!

Funny how a view that most members of the public would see as calming and something to sit still and soak up has the absolute opposite effect on us. That can't get your suit on fast enough excitement, a flurried burst of hectic activity slowing only when you make it out back and float waiting for the first set to roll through!

go west?!

bellyboards are cool

FACT!

Difficult to explain the fun to the uninitiated but much like handplanes, body surfing and surf mats, there's a lot of fun to be had from this most simple of surfcraft. Even on the messiest day they can provide some much needed saltwater based smiles.

The two in the picture are amongst the oldest surviving surfcraft in the country. The one with the slats across it was made from an old coffin lid and resides in the surfing museum collection.

quiver in transit...

Every option covered! Lovely bespoke Oddsocks board bags too!

So FINALLY a little bit of swell to write home about, the sun has been shining and the water has warmed up a little. The new Nineplus 3/2 retro full suit has been keeping me toasty, if only i could say my arms have been performing as well! It's depressing how quickly you lose paddle fitness, well i do anyway!

This time last year i was surfing Rincon and i can't help wishing we had booked flights this year too. Subscribing to the coastal push is not helping. The bank manager is happier but i miss surfing right hand pointbreaks! Next year hopefully.........

On the subject of subscriptions, i've recently had the first couple of issues of Foam Symmetry magazine. It's an Australian mag with Justin Bevan and Dane Peterson at the helm so you know it's going to be visually beautiful. It's high on content, low on advertising with creative use of design and paper stock, much closer to surfers journal than surfer but with more edge. I'd probably describe it as a paper distillation of the exciting stuff that's happeneing on the innumerable blogs out there. It's well worth a look if you get the chance. There's a cool article on the UK hip wigglers by Russ Pierre in issue two.

It may just be me, but whenever i've been out of the water for more than a couple of weeks, i'm always thankful i can still remember how to surf. I guess it's like riding a bike but it's always nice to get that first wave out of the way and know you can still make stuff happen. I've definately been feeling rusty this week though, bogging rails at stupid moments, making the wrong split second timing decisions.

Still it's been hella fun and thats the whole point when you think about it! Long may it continue.....

factory effluent

Just around the corner from the american road (so named as it's a remnant of WW2 military excercises) i sits this sign. It reads "Factory Effluent" and sat in the middle of a lush green vista, it's incongruity with it's surroundings made me pause for thought.

The shot, sadly, is a typical holga near miss, in my minds eye, the sign was a lot more legible! It's certainly not my best photo but if this truly rubbish run of "summer" conditions continues i am actually going to run out of photo's to post!

 It's on the way back from a short mountain bike loop that BGA took me on. I'm sure he took some sort of satisfaction form watching me hyper ventilate up the hills but the rush of bumpy downhill single-track is worth it and a new pleasure i've been introduced to recently.

Meanwhile the ocean went from flat to howling onshore mess and as i type looks like it's heading back to flat again, while i heroically fought some kind of stomach bug from under the duvet. I hate being ill - i'm really bad at sitting still!

 I did watch Steve Cleveland's new movie "Paradigm Shift" which runs along similar lines to his previous films. It's got some great surfing in it and some clever editing. Jai Lee and Dane Peterson probably have the best parts but Knost, Warren and all the other usual suspects are all present and ripping.

It didn't totally blow me away although that might be because i've hardly surfed at all myself recently and my stoke is at a low ebb. I think maybe watching it made me sad i'm not about to hop on a plane to california this year rather than get me excited about going surfing later as it usually would, which isn't Steve Clevelands fault!
 It might also be because the progression in logging seems to have slowed a little - there's no new noseriding trick that i hadn't seen before, nothing really made me stop and rewind. The level of noseriding is now so high it's inevitable it will plateau a bit before the next climb.
I certainly can't put my finger on anything that's wrong with the film, so ignore me and buy it, you'll love it and i'm sure i will once the flat spell is over!

Jack Coleman's "Polyester" is worth a watch too especially if you're an Alex Knost fan. Be warned it is SUPER arty, all scratched painty super 8, weird angles and a velvet underground type soundtrack. It's reminiscent of early Volcom films and definately in the "art piece" category but a good diversion for half an hour and i really like it.

 There's (pleeeeeeese!!!) a small chance of a loggable wave at this end of the week. If there's anything at all in the way of tiny clean waves i'm breaking the sup or a belly board out, i NEED some kind of sideways sliding action and at this stage i'm really not being choosy!

checkpoint charlie

Massive congratulations to Tim and Louise who got married on Saturday. Hope you enjoyed your day as much as everyone else did!

Probably a good thing that Mr Heyland only got to dress you for your stag, not the actual day eh?!;-)

In other news, Gulfstream just sent their first epoxy prototype shortboard to morrocco with Nigel Cross who's loving it apparently. Stay tuned for their upcoming epoxy high performance thruster range. Jools is, as ever, fully stoked on making custom surfboards and has plans for a few new shapes to add to their range over the summer.

Meanwhile in California, plumber about town and lovable drunk Cotty was quite frankly robbed by the Billabong XXL commitee and missed out on taking the prize for biggest wave. He did get the satisfaction of having towed Garret McNamara into the portugese beast that won and some beer money as a result. Well done mate! Incidentally, if you don't read his blog it's well worth a click and a few minutes while the kettle boils!

logshop...

Part of the roomy interior of the Nineplus shop in Braunton, snapped whie Rob made me a coffee.

It's the closest shop around at the moment  in vibe (except revolver maybe) to the californian shops like Thalia or Mollusc.

With some nice US made logs, Vans, Levi's, some vintage clothes and smooth skin wetsuits, it's worth sticking your head through the door on your way over to Gulfstream to check out their locally made beauties.

in the estuary...

It's a boat.....who'd a thunk?!!

commuting.....

Couple of promo shots of Pete Robinson, founder of the museum of british surfing on his way to the beach keeping the chill off in his finisterre jacket. The museum is open now and finisterre helped support the opening.

Most of you probably know about finisterre but if not, they make exceedingly fine outdoor type clothing, perfect for dealing with our climate pre and post surf. It's as ethically sourced as possible and great kit.

the last time.....

for a while that the beach will look this empty...

Living in an area that's a tourist destination, it's always interesting to see the change in the local population and it's density as the seasons cycle through. Even in the current days of webcams, internet forecasting and thicker wetsuits, it's not that hard to roll up to the beach to a view like this. Leastways over the colder months.  Yet as soon as Easter rolls around it's like someone, somewhere throws the people switch and there are people everywhere. No matter how bleak and grey and windswept, there's hardy british holidaymakers hunkered down behind their windbreaks. The village is filled with stressed, damp mothers ushering their bedraggled offspring from shop to shop looking for an alternative to the mud of their campsite.

In a weird way i've always liked it, it gives the place some life after the cold of winter. There's an air of anticipation of sun and fun to come. Spring is in the air... 

more tea?

surf museum open now!!!

The Museum of British surfing is now open! Massive congratulations to Pete and the team for making it through the long process with all it's trials and tribulations. It's located at the side of the main car park in Braunton. Please make time to come and visit and support it, it's preserving our nations unique take on surfing and it's really worth your time and support.

the lookout.......

First cross-processed roll through the Lc-a was mostly a success, feel like i'm learning the camera a little. Still feels a little odd and frustrating to be so reliant on batteries, especially in the cold months of our climate.

Next roll loaded is fuji velvia which is my favorite 120 film to cross process. Excited to see how it comes out of the Lc-a!

velo - city

It's taken me a while to feel like i've surfed this board enough to properly review it here but i've had it out in a decent variety of waves now so here goes!

It's a 5'6 x 22 x 2 - 2.5 Mford model by Jeff McCallum. The template is based on Greenough's velo kneeboards with the rails and base borrowed from a mini simmons. The wide point is well forward and the bottom goes from a gentle roll quickly into fairly flat then a big single concave through the fins. The deck is scooped out a bit, though nowhere near as much as a proper flexspoon kneeboard. The fins are beautifully made half moon style quad keels glassed on and beautifully polished. In fact the whole board is a work of art from the shape to the tint and the finishing. It's definately a board you could have on the wall if you wanted!

Paddling is fine, in fact the concave deck feels really comfy and "connected" with your chest. Despite the width it's thin enough to duckdive fine too. It paddles into waves smoothly and then you're off to the races!

It's a really laterally fast board, covering a lot of ground with each pump along the wave. There's a real feeling of squirt out of each bottom turn. It's great at racing sections down the line and it's short enough to coax up and over encroaching white water. It's got a lovely, smooth, knife through butter feel through the water, closer in feel to my old velo - sim than the bar of soap. A little bit of hull smoothness but without the "squirlyness" the greater belly on the velo-sim gave. The lack of rocker and width let you carry through flat sections easily and it's much more of a junk buster than the bar of soap has been so far.

All this lateral speed needs to be reined in and the smoothness carries through cutbacks. I'd probably describe it as like a very smooth fish, a flowing softness to the lines it draws. Not as shortboard feeling as the bar of soap, not as hully as the velo-sim.

The width and the position of the widepoint does need a little getting used to, both setting on a rail and bottom turning on your backhand but it's not a problem after a couple of waves. Thats about the only negative thing i can say, all in all it's a worthy addition to the quiver and a keeper for sure!

how much rubber?

Jake and Anna contemplate how many extra bits of neoprene they need to put on before paddling out over here.

a solitary pursuit

alone in a crowded place...

Hopefully everyone had a few fun waves over the weekend. Once the fog cleared up here there were some beautiful glassy chest high waves on sunday and some small clean loggable peelers on Monday. Perfect conditions to show off our beaches to my visiting Californian friends, Jake (who works at the excellent Almond shop) and his girlfriend Anna

I think they had a good time, i certainly got loads of pleasure from showing them around. Seeing it through their eyes reinforced how beautiful and relatively unspoilt our coastline is and how much fun our waves are when it's good. I think Devon exceeded their expectations. They're in Spain now, hopefully getting fun waves there too.

Anna has a cool little blog thats worth checking out here.

longview

betwixt sea and sky.....

Winter surfing here is a pretty grey experience mostly, grey skies, grey sea, muted countryside, grey tarmac coloured only by the brown of mud.

Some days, like this one, the sea and the sky are so similar you can't see where one starts and the other finishes. Waves loom unexpectedly and the water is cold enough to burn your face as you dive beneath them.