'sup jake?!

clickety          click

life is just swell!

Sunshine, waves, smiley faces, people and traffic everywhere and putsborough charging £7 to park,  it IS summer!

 A couple of bits of local news to share.
The Nineplus shop in the village now has some Bings in the racks to salivate over, along with their own logs and a couple of Takayama's. Bing himself is coming over to the UK and will be doing stuff with Nine plus and the Surfing museum over the weekend of the 16th September so stay tuned for more details of that.

Braunton also has a new surf shop! The Board Barn has moved from chivenor to the old spa shop next door to surfed out (bet glen is stoked!) in the centre of the village. Yet another place to mooch when it inevitably starts raining again!

how much rubber?

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

life is just swell.....

Dave Allee, owner of Almond does his best catalogue pose

almond

I spent a little bit of time hanging out with the almond boys Dave, Jake and Taylor at their shop on the edge of newport/costa mesa. It's about a mile inland from Blackies and is a really cool little space, a mix of lovely boards, bamboo, vintage shelving, kind of a little bit tiki without the chintz. They have been there for two years now, quietly producing 100% handmade surfboards, logs, fishes and single fins, some japanese wetsuits, carving their own little niche in a busy marketplace. The whole venture has a friendly low key organic feel made for friends by friends vibe, without seeming exclusive or over concerned with it's own importance.

Their boards work too, designed by owner Dave and production shaper griffin, most have handmade wood fins as standard. Cyrus Sutton is riding one in his stoked and broke film and their "collective of enthusiasts" also includes ex womens world champ Schuyler Mc ferren so there's some respected feet on their craft. At the moment there are a few available in Europe but none in the UK though if there was some interest i'm sure it would be possible to get some over here.

Theirs is the sort of young grass roots outfit that deserves support


I'll leave the last word to Dave

"Weʼre in the business of keeping people stoked, because stoked people keep us in business."

z boy

Jake Z, part of the Almond crew, smooth logger, one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet and nearly as surf stoked as me eh Jake? :-)