warmer

The season of cold hands is approaching........

full quiver

In the interests of completeness, here's the full quiver as it stands. In the words of Rob Machado..." A good quiver should keep you regularly confused"

From the top pic:

Left side top to bottom

5'2 Gulfstream seapea
5'2 Tyler Warren Bar of soap
5'4 Mandala Superchunk
5'6 McCallum Mford
5'6 GS Keel fish
5'8 Mabile classic keel
6'10 Takayama Howard Special mini

Logs L-R

9'4 GS slimpig
9'4 If6was9 Mod log
9'4 Bing NR2
9'6 Classic Malibu Jai Lee noserider

In front : 9'4 Squire Dirk of doom

le petit quiver

Nicely light leaked Diana film shot of my travelling quiver for our summer trip to france. Pretty much all conditions covered by these choices and they all got wet several times.

L-R 9'4 GS slimpig, 7'0 Greco surf performance soft top, 5'6 GS keel fish, 4th Gear flyer surf mat

I hadn't ridden the mat for a long time but I had so much fun in the high tide shore break on it, it ended up being one of the trip highlights. The soft top is fun too. It's really my daughters board but it surfs really well considering.

groomer

Beach grooming, Les Dunes

truck

I'm a sucker for a good truck. Late 50's ford (i'm told) far from home.

first light

Part of the reason I've been time poor is because of this photo, or specifically the physical effort required to take it. First light breaking over Chamonix at the beginning of another big day of riding in the mountains climbing some of this years tour climbs. Sights like this made all the miles and hours of Devon hills worth it.

dwindling

I haven't written many posts of late. Life seems so busy and sometimes its difficult to find the time to obsess over the minutae of surfing. I think too that the blogosphere isn't as vibrant as it once was. our ever shortening attention span is drawn more and more to the quick hit and immediacy of tweets and Instagram captions. I guess i'm as guilty as anyone of this - my Instagram gets updated more regularly than here if i'm honest. Still its nice to ramble a little when I get the chance.

Autumn is shaping up to be a classic this year with some solid fun size swell and plenty of offshores. The water is still warm and it's been a chance to rotate quite a few boards through the van from my quiver. My favorite board changes with every few days. Honorable mentions to the 9'4 Slimpig, 5'4 superchunk and my Howard special egg.

Fun times......

longview

With the new parking arrangements at saunton, i've ended up surfing P-land a bunch over the summer. Its a maligned wave in many respects, oft overlooked unless the wind is wrong elsewhere. In truth it can be a lot of fun on a log or a fishy shortie, especially if you catch the right banks.

instant fun

Quiver summer 2016

opening the toybox

lunchtime

Whenever I travel to surf, it always strikes me how much easier it is to be a surfer in some other places - California and Hawaii are great examples. There's almost always a wave somewhere and generally there's going to be somewhere the wind is reasonably favourable or the bottomshape is strong enough to keep the wave quality ok. I honestly think people in these places wouldn't bother to get in the water in half the stuff we regularly paddle out in. Surfing is just "there" to take or leave as life allows. You don't need to be quite as obsessive as UK surfers often "need" to be

The
point I'm making is how "on it" you need to be to get any good at surfing here. Almost everyone I know tries to keep their schedule as flexible as possible, constantly keeping an eye on the tide and forecast hoping to create a slot of freetime at the right time.

I'm lucky, I work 5 minutes from the beach and whilst I cant always pick the perfect time to get there, I can find a slot most days there are waves. Then its just a case of having a quiver of the right boards in the mobile garage that my van constitutes and hoping the summer traffic isn't too bad.

Lomo LCa picture from just after a springtime liquid lunch

peak experience

Another one from my ride in the dark peak.