Archive for: Surfing

I’ve finally got around to putting up a few pics from our trip to Newquay last month. We had a good time, great weather (as usual) and a few reasonable waves and one defining sunset season at Fistral on the last night. This time around Alan Stokes and Ollie weren’t around, but I still managed to spot another pro, Russell Winter. This pro surfer spotting is becoming something of a habit, haha!

Check out the pics on Flickr.

This is the film that I didn’t end up seeing at the London premiere, instead I downloaded it from the Relentless website (in ipod format).

The short film was moving, poignant and got me inspired for my next surf trip. I won’t be riding anything like the size of the waves in this film, but the sentiment of commitment and searching for new ideas, styles and situations is the same.

Get stoked and check out the trailer above!

On the 27th June, Beej and I will be taking off for Peniche, Portugal for a week’s surf trip. It will be my second time in Portugal (the first being back in August 2007) and I am hoping we will get some good rides.

We are going to stay at Casa D’Arriba near Praia da Consolação, just down the coast from a spot called Supertubos. Those of you who can’t speak Portugese can probably guess what that means? If not there is a little picture below to point you in the general direction. Fingers crossed we’ll get some swell. I think we’ll both be happy to get something resembling at least half the size of this wave!

Photo: Cedric de Barros

Next weekend will be the second trip we’ll make down to Cornwall this year. Hopefully we’ll score some waves and get a little surf stoke going. Living in a landlocked village in the middle of Essex, I don’t get to surf every day, or every weekend for that matter, so to surf once a month is a more attainable goal.

So far this year I’ve surf every month from February until now (May). The next few months will also continue that trend with a trip to Peniche in Portgual booked for the end of June/early July and Devon booked for August, but I digress.

The usual suspects are coming, Ben C and Richie, with the addition of newbie: Lionel (a seasoned snowboarder with an unashamed love for long, phat powder days, but a novice to the ocean sport of surfing). We are travelling down on Thursday night/Friday morning in convoy, to avoid traffic and to hopefully score a quiet morning session before the crowds of surf schools and stag weekenders are unleashed on the beaches.

Lets hope the surf was as good as it was last time, back in Easter, only time will tell!

My friend is Eurico Gonçalves is competing this weekend in the 1ª etapa do Circuito Nacional de Longboard at Praia do Cabedelo, Portugal. Shame I am here in the UK in the cold and wet, so I won’t see it.

Anyway good luck Eurico, boas ondas!

I’ve been pretty busy since we got back from Newquay two weeks ago, so hadn’t really had the opportunity to check out some of the photos I took. I was quite pleased to find some of these (more retro style) shots on my waterproof W60 camera (they have obviously had a little tinkering in PhotoShop). There are a few below, the rest are on my flickr.

Every now and then you come across a person or a group of people that remind you that there is something called humanity out there. This story goes back about 5 weeks now, to when I was still in Massaguacu in Brazil, but I didn’t get around to blogging about it (in full) when I was there, so now is the time.

Rose and I had visisted Breeder surfboards on the second day we were in Massaguacu to look at boards, but as I wanted to check out some of the other shops in the area, I didn’t actually make a purchase.

A month later after breaking the fin off my board and being on the search for a new set, we returned to Breeder to see if they had any in stock. Unfortunately they didn’t, but Renato (Casimiro) the owner said he knew someone who could make some. It was going to take about a week for them to come through from the shop up the coast, so whilst I was there I had a second look around the shop and got into the mindset to buy another board.

After having a tour of the shop and the shaping room, I went for a tasty 7’0 fun board (see previous blog post about Clyde) which was the best purchase I made whilst in Brazil. What I didn’t realise was that this board came with a whole lot more than just a thruster set-up, sock, leash and board bag. It came with the Casimiro family stoke.

Rose and I had walked to the shop, as we didn’t have a car and the buses are a little thin on the ground in those parts. As well as going to the surf shop, we were also due to go to the supermarket to buy food and supplies for a few days.

After purchasing the board, we asked if we could leave it there just whilst we popped up to the shop. Joao (Renato’s dad and business partner) asked us if we wanted a lift to the supermarket (about 10 mins walk up the road) but we said we’d be fine.

15 minutes later, whilst walking around the shops, we bumped into Joao, who had driven up to the supermarket with the sole intention of picking us up, taking us back to the surf shop and then driving us back to the apartment, all to save us the hassle and effort of taking back all our stuff on foot.

This was one of those moments, where you thought, man, there are still decent people out there who will go out of their way to help you. He was just stoked to help and happy that we were grateful for his help.

So anyway the moral of the story this time, spend £350 or more in a Brazilian surf shop, and you might get a free lift home – joking!

But seriously, in a world with more than its fair share of assholes, it is just nice to be reassured that there are decent people out there! Thanks again Joao and Renato.

I’ve been thinking over the past year about doing a course to become a surf instructor/beach lifeguard. The idea being that I spend too much time behind a desk in London when I would rather be out doing something I really love.

OK this isn’t going to be a full time career change, but I was initially thinking of spending a few months in the summer down in the West Country teaching surfing and the rest of the year earning some dosh in London freelancing as I am at the moment.

Anyway the idea is just in it’s infancy at the moment, but hopefully it will lead to something, watch this space!

Last (Easter) weekend, me, Richie and James did a 3 day trip down to Newquay and were rewarded with great weather, good waves and the presence of a few pro-surfers in the water (Alan Stokes and Ollie Adams).

We missed the Easter crowds by leaving at midnight on the Thursday, getting to Newquay for 5.30am. There was no traffic on the roads as you would expect, and we were down to the West Country for first light.

We arrived in a misty, semi-dark Newquay for the early morning high tide where we waited in the car for first light and met up with James (who had recently made a new purchase on a surf wagon).

High tide wasn’t up to much, so we went and got some breakfast and relaxed for a few hours, waiting for the tide to drop.

By the time the water had dropped, we were left with a good wave, which was pretty much the order of the whole weekend. We all got some nice rides and then retired to the Indian Summer for an evening of curry and beers.

The next day we awoke to a glorious day, with shoulder to head high surf over at Fistral and waist-high in the bay. Rich, James and I hit it big time, with myself of course over doing it and surfing until sunset and nearly collapsing at dinner that night over at Dirty Dicks Mexican.

The final day was absolute glass, perfect for longboarding and catching some sweet peelers, unfortunaltey due to fatigue and a dodgy ring, Richie was left on the beach, but what he didn’t capture in terms of waves he certainly made up with by catching a few decent waves on camera for us!

And so the quiver extends itself to 6! Yep that is 6 surf boards, spread over 2 hemispheres, you could even say it is an intercontinental quiver!

This is the 7’0 fun board that I brought from sharper and owner of Breeder surfboards, Renato Casimiro, I’ve named him Clyde (after Clyde “the glide” Drexler).