Posts tagged: Surfing

I finally got a little spare time to create a mini site and get my Brazil Surf DVD: ‘BST07 Ondas do Brasil’ up online. For those not lucky enough to have a hard copy of the DVD, the YouTube version should give you a little taster of what it is like to live and surf in Rio de Janeiro and Salvador da Bahia.

Go check it out: http://bst07.hungrybrowser.co.uk/

I just logged onto youtube to check out my old account, with a view to upload the new BST07 DVD I made and found that a scene from the DVD I made last year, WST06 had a little nomination in the California Coastal Views Film Festival. I didn’t win, but was kinda stoked to get a mention. Maybe BST07 will get a little more attention, website and videos coming soon!

So the 2 week surf-fest had to come to an end. Am back on Terra firma now after having a wicked week in Devon and then a second in Portugal.

The first week was spent surfing my arse off in Croyde with the Lee Bay Massive (a.k.a BJC, P-dog and Luke), many a wave, many a beer and many a Caipirinha were served, all good fun.

The second week me and P-dog hit up the Southern Coast of Portugal for a week’s surfing in the Lagos area. We had a wicked time with the Extreme Holiday’s crew and partied pretty damn hard every night, with the earliest we went to bed being 2.30am and then latest something like 7am, pretty hardcore.

We met some great folks, and ended up sharing a room with 2 great guys: Tim and James who pretty much made the holiday. We had a cool surf instructor called Eurico,who told some great stories and really made us feel welcome.

I managed to surf between 5-6 hours every day, with the wave size varying between 1-5ft on the face. I surfed the 6’0, 6’4 and 9’2 all giving unique rides. It was great to have such a varied week’s surfing, from dropping into some nice pits with a nice steep take-off, to some really mellow right handers that peeled off a nice reef called “Pliers”. The last day was spent on the 9’2 and I was loving it, moving up and down the board, getting in my first floater and generally ripping it up to the extent that I nearly passed out on the beach afterwards from exhaustion.

I was also stoked when one of the instructors told me with a little practice I could easily go out to Fuerte’ and become a surf instructor with Extreme, so that was a huge compliment. I feel my surfing has improved a huge amount over the past few weeks, and I can’t wait to get back in the sea as soon as we get some decent swell coming through.

Back to work tomorrow, looking forward to seeing everyone and will pop up some photos from the hols soon.

I’m off for 2 weeks of surfing in 2 day’s time, and can’t wait. The first stop will be a week in Devon hanging out with the Lee Bay Massive (BJC, P-dog, Luke) and hopefully getting some serious wave, sun and relaxation time away from London and the office.

The second trip is to southern Portugal for a surf safari with Richie and the Extreme Holidays crew. Again hopefully we will get some sick waves, new experiences and loads of sunshine.

The weather in the UK has been shocking crap ever since I returned from Brazil. We have had the odd day of sunshine, but on the whole the British summer has been a complete and utter washout. We have had so much rain that half the country is under water and suffering from intense floods.

It will be nice to escape the crap and hopefully return refreshed and ready to enjoy what will be left of the summer.

My Brazil surf DVD is nearly complete, and I will be sending it out, as I did last year to all the nice people I met from around the world on my trip.

Other news, I got a new MacBookPro at work today, so the tried and trusted PB will be taking a back seat whilst I take it to the next level with the MBP.

I have been going mental down the gym, swimming at lunch time and then running and working out in the evening, all going well and I feel in good shape all round and hopefully that is gonna pay off when I hit the surf in a few days.

The Mitch mobile is back on the road after a hefty £800 refit, hopefully he’ll stay in one piece for me and Richie to drive down to Devon on Saturday morning.

Well that’s all for now folks, off to cook up some nice king prawns.

It is only 2 weeks until I take a well-earned break, well when I say well-earned, this is going by my old freelance work timetable, I did have 2 months off to go to Brazil earlier this year, but anyway.

In 2 week’s time, Me, Richie, Luke and Beej will be hitting up the North Shore, haha, no not the REAL North Shore, but the north shore of Devon, England. We will be attending our annual surf trip down to Lee Bay, where magic things happen with cider, killer sunsets, Bill’s BBQs and sloppy, small summer surf sessions. Lets hope the weather pics up soon, as the summer has been shocking of late.

We have a week down there, and then me and Richie will head off to Portugal with Extreme Holidays and surf for a week down in Lagos, which is just along the coast from Sagres and Faro. It will be really cool to practice my Portuguese and see to what extent there are any parallels between Brazil and the motherland.

Back to the gym tomorrow to continue on the twice-a-day preparation for the forthcoming antics.

What an action-packed weekend it was. Friday lunchtime was my official ‘joining drinks’ with the Crayon team down at the local Winchester pub. After a few Guinness, the afternoon started to progress quite nicely. I was then put in charge of the cocktails for the 3rd week in a row and chose to make Mojitos for everyone. So things continued along the alcohol-fueled vibe for the rest of the afternoon/evening.

BJC picked me up from the pub and then we headed down to Richmond where we chilled for the evening at my Dad’s. We awoke early Saturday morning and started our journey down to The Gower in South Wales. We headed to Tesco to pick up supplies for the journey and then BJC was treated to driving the entire length of the M4 whilst I was in charge of the iPod and talking general crap etc.

We arrived at Langland Bay about 4 hours later to be greeted by some rather small, well actually flat surf. We felt pretty bummed out having made all the effort to get there. We then cruised round the corner to Caswell Bay, but experienced the same reception.

A further 30 minutes drive and we hit up Rhossili and parked up on top of the cliffs to check out the surf. We had been rewarded, some waves at last. Although not amazing, we could see some nice lines coming in and a fresh offshore breeze helping clean up the small sets.

We checked into the Worms Head Hotel where we dumped, prepared ourselves with a few Guinness and then suited up. The surf was ok, BJ and I both got some pretty sweet rides, and probably stayed out for a few hours. It was a far cry from Rio and the warm water, but at least we made the effort to get out there and have some fun.

In the evening we had a few Bulmers to get things going, played some cards and ate some food, whilst I muttered various smutty remarks about the Eastern Europen barmaids.

Sunday was a bigger day, but the wind was onshore which meant Rhossili was an intense paddle out, 200m of whitewash and about 10-15 waves before you got out back, it was a little too much, and to be fair verging on the dangerous. So we took the party back to Caswell and gave that a go. Again very onshore, but we still had a laugh.

In the afternoon we headed into Mumbles for some classic fish and chips and then made the arduous journey back to London enjoying some heavy traffic on the way.

It was good to get away, to be near the sea again, and even if the waves weren’t amazing, BJC and I had a cool time! Am looking forward to the next trip asap!

After being back from Brazil for nearly 5 weeks I have started the edit on the footage I shot in Rio and Salvador. I actually wish I had started it sooner, as now I am really busy with work and socialising, so only have about 1 hour spare every day, but a few week’s ago I just couldn’t handle looking at it all for obvious reasons, anyway…

I have put together the first scene and all is going well, so hopefully I will be able to get it done and sent out to all the folks I met by the end of the summer. It is also more than likely that I will put together another website like I did for WST06 and YouTube the DVD up, watch this space.

So BJC and I are hoping to hit up The Gower in South Wales this weekend, the swell looks to be pretty good, so we are hoping the charts will stay on track over the next few days. Sunday looks to be the best day with reportedly 8ft wave faces, which to be fair will be pretty intense. I am thinking I might pack the 6’4 as well as the 6’0 UB fish, we’ll see. It will be great fun to take them down to BJC’s on the tube, NOT.

I took this little sequence from some video I shot last month when I was surfing out in Brazil at Farol da Barra in Salvador, as you can see there are some pretty reasonable sized drops and some nasty accompanying whitewash, love that!

Just a few shots of me on a lazy day surf at Grumari on the mal, all good fun!