bluebelles

daybreaker

One thing I love about this time of year is seeing so many beautiful sunrises and sunsets, I'm lucky to get a spectacular view from just outside the house on many occasions. #lovewhereyoulive

finally

Not only is the flat spell over but I have a new film developed and scanned to start posting again!

I'm typing fresh out of the water at S-town having lucked into some small little offshore zippers with just Damo (on his posh new teamrider Karma Surfboards Log) keeping me company. The waters still got a little nip to it but the sun shone, the cave turned on and I got reacquainted with the front foot of my Gulfstream Slimpig. It kinda felt like the first little surf of summer today and it was cool to get some nice logging in without feeling as rusty as I sometimes do at this time of year on longer equipment.

Hopefully looking at a couple more days of bigger waves too......... Yew! As my Californian Friends would say!


Pic obviously not from today. V bowls loaned by Bill, more details to come!

sil - who - wets

hello buoys........

If only i could have got closer but there was a river in the way!

 

 

Well, we've had waves!!! Really quite good ones too. Yeah there may be greyness, drizzle and wind but at least it was wind in the right direction! SO nice to get into some small clean zippers even if it does feel like the water temperature has begun to drop a little! Finally feels like the surf stoke is creeping back.

Thumbs up for logs and long lunchbreaks!

 

Had some memorable waves on the Randall the last few days. The narrow nose and hips back locking in nicely on the pockets steepened by the strong offshores. Had a few fun ones on the borrowed Bing mini sim too, once again reinforcing how good these shapes are in our average waves!
 

Now the wind is coming back westerley you might want to check out Kook 3 while you look out at the rain with your steaming cup of joe.

 If you missed the first two, it's a surf newspaper very much from the fringes steered by the very english hands of Dan Crockett and Alex Rowse. It's eclectic, intriguing and thoughtfully put together. Well worth supporting! Click here

dreams burn down......

Last one of the four shots rescued from the expired film debacle. Seems like a long time ago now, back when summer still seemed a promise of good things to come and not the damp, grey cold reality we've suffered again.

Incidentally the random post title is from a Ride song that my ipod threw up. Shoegazing was a huge musical trend there in the early nineties but most of the bands are long forgotten. Made me smile to hear the intro to "leave them all behind" on Steve Clevelands last movie. He always picks good soundtracks i think.

get in the van

Finally finished the film that i took in the holga up to the lake district at easter. Not sure if i posted much about the trip before but what a beautiful part of the country! There aren't many places in this country i could imagine living but cumbria is now on the list, assuming i could cope with the seperation anxiety from the beach. The scenery really is breathtaking and there's a real "active" feel to places like Keswick and Ambleside, makes you feel like you want to get out walking or on a bike.


Like most of our trips away, we drove miles exploring, "up and down dale" as they say, through steep narrow roads and up close and personal with errant sheep and some dry stone walling. In fact just millimetres away from explaining "aggressive livestock damage" on my van insurance claim form!


 I took plenty of photos but in typical toy camera fashion, only a handful came out. This one is from Fellfoot park boathouse on Lake Windemere and you can't see how heavily it was raining from the shot but it's a good job the camera is purely mechanical and therefore showerproof! Most of the rest of the roll (including some shots that i really liked the composition of) ended up wrecked, i think purely because it was expired film. Thats what you getb for trying to be all arty and clever! Frustrating but i guess it's all part of the "fun" of these things!

petro cruising

le bistro

At last! i have been surfing and i am really pretty relieved i actually still know how! Really fun to have a couple of small clean logging waves, especially in the sunshine at the weekend. Extra rubber is definately not helping how un paddlefit i feel though!

Yesterday was cold, grey and properly felt like winter. Difficult to leave the house with the prospect of a damp wetsuit in a windchilled car park but well worth it. Couple of fun ones and good to catch up with some faces i haven't seen or a while. Mr Bott was styling as usual on his new bing (levitator) hopefully i can try it and report back soon!

The rest of the week looks small and clean, i just need to work out how i can squeeze time in the shortened daylight hours!

boats@noirmoutier

do you see a theme?

les dunes

where the streets have no name...

well they do......... it's just in french!

norwegian wood

a ghost in the machine

Happy New Year Everyone!

I was looking back at my new year post from last year and remembered that the surfer forums had a "best 3 boards of 09" thread running. Although a year has passed, two of my top three haven't changed!

I'm still in love with my 5'8 larry mabile keel fish, i've still yet to have a bad surf on it. In fact on the day the waiting" post picture was taken i think i had my best two shortboard turns ever, on the same righthander on this board.

Longboard wise, the 9'6 jai lee is still the board to beat, just like last year, and it's the log i've ridden most often. Honorable mentions go to the Dano i brought back from Ca and the bing NR2 i've acquired. Both have given some great trips to the tip on their day

The third board does change though....... Having been gifted a 5'8 mini simmons a few months ago, it's been in heavy rotation ever since. So much fun in junk, such a smooth feeling racing down the line. I think it's responsible for more surf related smiles than anything else over the last few months. Although they are very fashionable right now, if you can live with some lateral speed in your surfing instead of vertical ripping i'd wholeheartedly recomend getting on the program!

give me back my teddies!

Really happy to have my pictures featured on quality peoples. a couple of weeks ago