Archive for: Surfing

We headed down to St. Augustine today and got to the main beach next to the pier about 2pm. On the way we stopped off at The Surf Station, a really cool surf shop just at the southern tip of Anastasia National Park. The shop was kitted out with everything surf-related you could imagine, from boards, to wetties, leashes, clothes etc. And the boards, whoh, did they have some beauties, I had my eye on a beautiful twin-fin fish, real retro styling with a wood laminate finish, if only I a.) had more money and b.) had more space in my coffin bag (only fits 2 boards), so I guess I will have to save up for that next time!

Anyway we got to the beach and were greated with some super small, classic Floridian chop, I thought they only saved this kinda mess for summer in the UK, but it would seem they get it here across the other side of the pond too! Dru chilled on the beach whilst I took a little run down the beach and did a few exercises. I then thought what the hell, I’m going in for a paddle, so I took the 6’4 in for a bit of a laugh. I caught maybe 5 waves today, nothing at all to even merit raising an eyebrow, but fun all the same and just great to be out in the ocean again. The water is around 25 degrees and the air temp was probably in the 80′s, so couldn’t complain, hell even the sun poked it’s head out for a while!

My session was cut short though, as I got this bad nosebleed, and you know that blood and sharky waters don’t really mix, so I though I had better get out of the water until I stopped bleeding. Florida is THE shark capital of the world apparently, they say most attacks are a case of mistaken identity, but that isn’t really concillation if you lose your arm is it!

The forecast for the week is pretty small, but hopefully I’ll manage to get something, fingers crossed! Sun supposed to come out over the next few days and temperatures around 85-100 degrees, hot, hot, hot!!!

On our way down to visit Dru’s sister in Orlando (where we are now), we stopped off at Aqua surf shop and checked out some of their gear. I had a little chat to the guy on the counter, the usual surf banter etc. There was a group of chicks standing behind him all listening in, as soon as they heard my accent, a mini-discussion erupted and there were smiles and giggles! Am loving the fact that people over here dig the English accent, I can’t see what all the fuss is about myself, but hey, it’s kinda different, so all good!

Anyway time to hit the hay!

Woke up this morning , poked head out of the window and rose to another shitty overcast day down in Florida. Kinda sucks that we have driven all this way and the weather and waves are both shite!

Off to St. Augustine in a whlie, so fingers crossed we’ll get some sun down there, as the old tan has faded quite a bit since Fiji!

Anyway can’t complain, better than sitting on a dirty, expensive tube, filled with misrable people back in London!

Ride on!

Dhruva and I left Washington DC yesterday afternoon for our East Coast road trip. So far we have driven down from Maryland, through DC, Virginia and North Carolina, stopping overnight last night at some Econo Lodge (the kind you see in Yankee films) in Summerville, South Carolina.

Today we drove to Folly Beach, just outside of Charleston, SC. There was a surf contest there, but in true contest stype, the waves we knee-high to a hamster so I didn’t even bother to get the boards out of their covers. Unfortunately we also left the sunshine behind in DC as the weather was pretty cloudy and overcast, with some heavy rain in the late arvo.

Anyway we met this cool, 65 year-old surfer at Folly and had a great chat to him about all kinds of stuff. The old dude has been surfing since 1957, so basically has witnesses all the major shifts in US surf culture, very cool indeed!

We then headed into Charleston and had a little look around at the buildings, markets and just got a general feel for the vibe of the place. There are some great wooden buildings around this part of SC, and it all kinda reminds me of something out of Huckleberry Fin, the people also have that classic Forrest Gump accent, which I just think is funny as!

To top off the southern flavour we hit a crab house restaurant and got some shrimp (they call normal prawns shrimp here too). So we had a good feed and all was cool! We are now back on the road heading down to St. Augustine in Northern Florida. We are now at a gas stop just outside Savanah, Georgia. It is kinda swampy and sub-tropical down here, and you can definitely feel a difference in the air between here and DC.

We have a few more hours of driving to do before we hit St. Augustine, then we’ll hit another one of the road-side motels to stop over night. Tomorrow we are hoping to hit the beaches around there and hopefully luck out a bit more with some waves and some sun, fingers crossed!

Right beverage break now, still enjoying the trip, trying not to count the days down before I head back to the UK!

Been in the nation’s capital: Washington DC, now for nearly a week and had an absolute blast. Have been hanging out with Dhruva, Chris (Ride On) Cole (who I met over in SolCal), lovely Elise and the great folks over at George Washington University.

The nation’s capital is really cool, loads of nice architecture and monuments to check out, plus the weather has been beautiful since I have been here. Been on a bit of a party tip over the past few days with the GW crew, not got much sleep, but defo got some quality memories to take back with me to the UK.

Kinda developed a daily vanilla frap and blueberry muffin (courtesy of those nice folks over at Starbucks), well hell, it’s all good fun!

The yankees are still being the super friendly people that I am becoming used to, love the way that they all seem to go crazy at the English accent, funny!

Got myself kitted up with a top new bag this arvo and a nice snorkeling kit this arvo over at Costco, hopefully will get some diving action down in Florida over the next few days!

I am heading on down the coast tomorrow for a week on a road trip to North and South Carolina, Georgia and finally Florida, should be amazing, and weather looks pretty good (29-32 degrees for the next week)! Should be funny to check out the Southern accent, a la Forrest Gump!

Photos updated from past few days and ready to check out!

Now coming back to the UK somewhere around the 23rd May, instead of the 16th, all good, the party continues and will remember this world tour for the rest of my life…

Ride on!

When I started out in San Francisco this morning I didn’t think I would be sitting here at midnight in my king size bed, in my own room suite here in Dallas, Texas.

I started out this morning by trying my best to get to the airport on time to get my flights. Me being me, the king of the faffers, I managed to miss my flight. I turned up at the rental car drop off point with only 3/4 of a tank of petrol, but the dude said he would waiver the charge (usually a full tank of petrol). That was my first bit of good luck today. In the words of an old school mate it all went “jerky up and down” after that!

I then turned up at the check-in desk 10 mintues before the flight was due to leave, so I obviously missed the flight. What made it worse was the fact that I had a connecting flight in Chicago to then catch on to Washington DC, so that was also fooked. The nice people at American Airlines booked me on a flight to DC via Dallas Fort Worth. This was then delayed by an hour, and so when I actually arrived at Dallas, I had missed my flight again, with the next one not being until the morning! I was thinking to myself, someone obviously doesn’t want me to get to DC tonight. So AA booked me into The Best Western hotel in my own suite and I am due to fly out first thing in the morning.

I hadn’t eaten since breakie, so after checking in, I headed round the corner to Whataburger. There I managed to meet the entire St. Louis high school basketball team in the queue, these dudes had classic mid-western accents (just like in Forrest Gump). I am not sure what they feed them on down here, as they dwafed me, all at least 6’4 tall. Nice friendly guys!

Anyway it just goes to show that when you are travelling, you never know what each new day will throw at you, best thing to do is to stay chilled, go with the flow and be nice and polite to people, and over here in the USA they love the out-of-town English accent, as I found out in the burger queue tonight, with one of the guys asking me to say “bottle water”, having a little chuckle to himself after I had said it for him. People are genuinely interested in what you are doing and where you are from, and everyone loves the story of the World Surf Tour!

Early this evening, aboard the plane, I was reading my surf mags, reflecting about what I have seen on this trip, the beautiful people I have met, the great places I have seen and generally just experiencing life to the full. I was a bit bummed at the fact that yesterday will probably be my last chance to surf on this trip. But I have Devon to look forward to in July, and am gonna step up the search back home for new breaks etc. I also have a possible trip to Canada on the cards later on this year, and then there is World Tour 2007/Oz working VISA to start planning too!

This trip has been amazing in so many ways, it has taught me that I can go anyway and achieve anything I want, the only thing limiting me (apart from money) is my imagination and courage to actually get out of teh comfort zone and live life to the max! With each year I am becoming more of a surfer, and hopefully one day I will be living and working near the ocean, surfing every day with my crew and have a great chick by my side. Bring on the summer and the World Tour 2007, it’s all out there to be experienced!

I’ve had to close comments for the moment, as some c*ntango is spamming me with a load of sh*t, sorry to those who wanted to say hi.

Off to DC this morning, gonna be interesting checking out the East coast. A big thanks to Stacey for letting me crash at her place. Also thanks to Sabine for showing me around town etc. I had a really nice time hanging out with you both, and good to catch up after so many years. Thanks again!

Hope you both continue to have a great time in SF, such a wonderful city and great surfing too!

Well my final day in SF was spent driving down the coast to Half Moon Bay, where I stopped to check out Mavericks, California’s big wave spot. I didn’t attempt a paddle out, as it is notoriously sharky, rocky and the break is 1 mile out to sea. I did however surf on the beach at Half Moon Bay, next to the break water on the harbour. Got a few good mini rides, so stoked about that!

I also went in search of the Jeff Clarke surf shop, and was hoping to meet the guy himself, but no success! Concillation though, was on return to SF, I cruised down to Ocean beach to be greated by a fresh 13ft groundswell, albeit rather messy, with 6-7ft faces and thick walls. I managed to get a few rides, but also got a complete pounding. I took comfort in the fact that every other surfer out there was receiving the same rag doll treatment. Got it is scary when you don’t make the drop and can just see the dark pit 8ft below you, feeling like you are stepping on the edge of a cliff!

Spent the evening having a couple of glasses of wine and some pizza with my mate Stacey and her next door neighbour.

Tomorrow I fly to Chicago and then on to DC, if I have the energy I may even make one last trip to Ocean Beach in the morning to get my last USA surf in!

Today was my third outing down to Ocean Beach, San Fran. I got all geared up and ready to rock the line-up. The swell was a little smaller than yetserday, but still waist to shoulder high on the face, so all good!

I managed to perform my first backside cutback today on the old 6’4 (The Duke MKII), who is now sporting some rather tasty stickers! About half way through the session me and a few other surfers spotted this huge humpback whale that breached the surface as it flicked it’s tail, truly awesome!

This evening I am going to head out into town and hopefully get some pictures and go visit the “Little Thai” for some tucker, should be tasty!

Today was possibly the best day I have had in the water in terms of number of waves caught. The surf was a little smaller than yesterday, but just as cold, and the shark potential is always there up here in the NorCal shark pit.

Anyway got numerous rides today, maybe even as much as 50 waves in 3 hours. Lefts, rights, along the face, a few turns, holding the rail of the board, stroking the face of the wave as I went along, all good!

I then headed along the Pacific Highway to check out the Aqua Surf Shop. The guys in there are real friendly and gave me a load of free stickers for my board! More good karma, nice!

Anyway gonna lay low tonight and do some editing on the DVD, 3 hours in the water when it is only 13 degrees kinda drains you a little! The best thing now is I am here until Friday, as I have managed to change my flights, all good!

Today has been another wicked day in the grand old US of A. Awoke this morning to a kinda cloudy day. Stopped in at the hostel kiosk for breakie and a chat with some of the other guests, before heading off to Ocean Beach to get some surfing in. I stopped off at Fort Point where I got a lacca view of Alcatraz and also the Golden Gate bridge.

It kinda feels like a home-coming surfing back in cold water (12 degrees), you can’t beat the cold water experience, there is something about it, some hate it, I don’t mind so much! Granted you need more neoprene and don’t get the tan, but taking a few (waves) on the head sure wakes you up!

So I met the local crew, a cool mid-forties surfer called Scott who introduced me to a few of the other guys in the line up and surfed for about 3 hours. Caught some nice waves, traded stories and generally did what surfers do! I also saw a seal and sea lion in the line-up which kinda shit me up a little.

Early arvo/evening I headed up to Filmore and Haight to meet Sabine (an old work mate) for a drink. The bus journey across town was an experience in itself, with loads of interesting people to look at and talk to on the way.

After a couple of beers we headed over to the other side of town to meet up with Stacey and all headed out for some Thai food. Had a nice feed, went for a night cap and then I headed back to my hostel.

I am constantly amazed at how friendly and nice people are to me, especially here in the states, I am not sure if it is ‘cos I am out of town, or if it is just how yanks are, but it is very cool! I kinda feel on a role at the moment, kinda like on maximum mojo. Surfing well, seeing great things, everyone likes me, everyone is kind, everything is interesting, can’t complain about that at all! I must be putting out some positive karma and vibes or something, as all the good energy is coming right back to me!

Anyway off to bed now as got to be fresh for the waves in the morning. Have got the stoke on about tomorrow already, another day, another adventure, wish this trip would last a lifetime, but I guess I will have to go home and top up the funds at some point, and then go and do the next one!

Living the dream! You can’t beat that!