SummerTime [video]

As I flick through Howard's Fisher Viking blog, set on the North Somerset and Devon coast, wind chill rising and the darkest part of Winter approaching, it felt like the right time to finally sit down for a few hours to edit the footage from last Summer. This is around the same time I caught up with Jonny, Aggro, and Kath and got some great surf down the SW. When it's good, there's not many places I'd rather be surfing with mates. Moreover, and more importantly, at a time when things were incredibly hard, it was a real boost. This one's for you guys. Summer will be back. In the meantime, enjoy those long, long lines and epic Winter days.

Blackened

Dark skies and a flat ocean is all that greets us today. The recent rain means shredded seaweed lines the shorebreak with a heavy brown, sucking at your legs as you wade out. Only good for a swim today though even that brings its own refreshment.

Selfie

Seagull, waddling in from stage left. Pauses, waits for the surf cam. to finish its rotation. Looks squarely at the lens. Snap! Not certain how it intended to retrieve the image. If this is you, drop me a DM and I'll mail it to you.

Yoyos

Filming today felt like four sessions in one. Comfortable two footers intersected with 4-5ft bombs. Click through to see the video.

Poker Face

Long lulls between the sets. Ocean looks manageable. Tricky shore break methinks. North or South of the flags? More crowded North, not quite such a good peak to the South. Opt for the smaller crowd. Take a running jump at the shore break. Get stuffed. Sand politely shoved into the wetsuit from both directions, down the neck and up the legs. That’s going to feel like a free exfoliation later. Make it past the churning inside and there’s half a football pitch of flatness between the inside and pack. They seem a long way out. Paddle on through the ocean; a crisp turquoise blue, light offshore.

Out the back, floating in what feels like a no mans land. There’s a high proportion of blue and yellows; foam boards without the fibreglass, the long lulls and smooth ocean inciting them out. Many look a little steely faced. Tight lipped for the most part. A twitch on the horizon, the pack’s spooked and starts to paddle. Hold ground and wait, can’t see anything yet.

A set rolls through. Not pitching but a good size, the top end of 4ft. A huddle gets washed through, duck dive and re-surface. I feel like Luke in the trash compacter, surrounded by spluttering and unidentified objects. Sitting further out makes more sense now. Float in a spot beyond the crowd and wait for the bigger ones. Smooth, long lefts. Faster, glassy walled rights. A two hour session, rinse and repeat until the tide fills it up and its time to race through the foam and get reacquainted with the shore break. It goes much more smoothly second time around.

 

 

 

 

Dusk

With the recent run of shark attacks along the coast I probably won't be doing this for a while.

A Bit of an Edge

The wind was into it a bit and water still nipped at the ankles, reminding you that Spring had only just left us. The water was a pepper shaker of dotted garbs; the full suited, shorties and rash vest tops mixed amongst the board shorted and bikinis. Look one way and you'd think you were in Spring, look the other and bare skin revealed Summer is upon us.

Summer Sunday in Spring

It's been hot. Near on 10 degrees C hotter than usual. It's been windy, as the heat rises it draws a searing wind across the inner desert into the city and on to the beach. Boardshorter optimists are out in the water but they're not lasting long as the sea hasn't caught up with the atmosphere yet, still hovering at a level that needs a full suit for the less thermic amongst us (like myself). Easy decision to head down to the beach though; sun's out, 2ft swell, offshore wind.

The odd 3-footer sliding through.

Optimists were out in board shorts

Packed

Wind funnelling rights

Nice sunset

Watching. Waiting. Go do something constructive. Check the surf cams again. Wait. Check again.

Eventually the swell past the threshold point from a weak and sloppy 1ft in the morning to a surfable and fun looking 1-2ft (chest to shoulder high) near dusk. The car was already packed up (of course) so it was out the door and on the road in less than five minutes. Big G would be proud.

Caught plenty of fun lefts and although they were still a bit wobbly at least there was a peak and decent rides; it was good to get a few turns in and heft the working week out of me with a few hours of paddling.

Was it worth it? Sure. Besides, after crouching over the laptop like a hawk waiting for a mouse to emerge from the safety of its burrow, there really isn't any other way to answer that question.

Rest of the week looks small.

Surfing, UK-style

It's been several years since I've surfed decent waves in the UK; although I've been back a few times I've never really been there long enough to have the right combination of conditions to get great surf. Back in July I was there for six weeks as my Dad was unwell and had the chance to catch up with Jonny, Kath, and Ruairi; three great friends from way back. Photos and video are in-line at the bottom of the post.

The conditions; light offshore, 3 - 4ft of swell, bright blue skies (25 degrees C). For those unfamiliar with UK surf, getting this trifecta is unreasonably rare. If the surf's up, it's often accompanied by light drizzle. If the weather's perfect the ocean looks like your local pool. We lucked out. Even more so that this combination fell on a Saturday so that the weekend warriors could enjoy it.

Although it had been at least five years or more since I'd had been back when there was good surf in the UK we fell straight into the pattern we used to repeat throughout Uni. and beyond when conditions were good (more often than you'd expect). It goes something like this;

• Wake at dawn. Even though you are definitely going because you've made the mental commitment to head to the beach, you still check the wave buoys and wind forecast one last time.
• Travel down an increasingly narrowing set of roads, from three lane motorway, to dual carriageway, down to single lane, unpaved track. The countryside opening up around you in a patchwork quilt of different coloured meadows.
• Arrive, in dribs and drabs, at a pre-determined meeting point. Check the surf; often involving a hike of varying heftiness to get sight of the ocean.
• Run back up the hill as the adrenaline kicks in. Get changed in record time.
• Throughout the session catch up on news, call each other into waves, laugh at the inevitable wipe outs or mild crunchings that your mates go through, chat like it was only yesterday that you saw each other rather than a few weeks or years.
• Surf until either Option (a), you are too cold to move; (b) you are too tired to move [options often depend on season, (a) for Autumn / Winter, (b) for Spring / Summer].
• Re-fuel. Eat. Then eat some more. On this trip it was a Cornish pasty (x2), a litre of water, a Mars Bar, and an oat flap jack.
• Chat, catch up on life, rest. Make a decision on where to go next. In this case it was a spot that I hadn't been to for a long while so it took some finding.
• Tramp along a path with all your gear on your back for 30 minutes to find a little gem of a reef break that's rarely surfed because of its remoteness.
• Drag on a wet wetsuit, all the time repeating the mantra, "a wet wetsuit warms-up quicker" as the cold dankness of it slowly touches every part of you as you drag it up your body.
• Surf until, either (a)....  you know the drill on this one.
• Crawl out, desperately trying to make sure that in your exhausted state you don't get mangled in the shore-break.
• Walk back 30 minutes to the car, chatting about the session and the waves you caught. In this case an amazing day and some much needed support from mates in a really difficult time.
• Slowly pack the car and say final goodbyes before heading off in various and different directions towards lives that exist in different parts of the country or world but remain always connected.
• On the journey home drive with the window down, letting the warm air filter past you, surrounding yourself with nothing more than the low buzz of a travelling car and the occasional zip-zip of vehicles heading in the other direction. Reflecting on what an awesome day it's been.

Recently, back in Australia, I'd almost dropping into a pattern of treating going for a surf like a game of squash. Get up, check the cameras, looks good, go surf for 1 1/2 hrs., get back in time for breakfast. It's good to be reminded that you should try and squeeze every last ounce out of good surf (and probably life in general).

Moreover, and more importantly, at a time when things have been incredibly hard it was great to know that these fantastic moments can still exist and continue even when things are so difficult. It's been a regular boost when looking back.

First session; stacked.	Big blue skies, open fields. Tony lanes.
The car-park.	Changing room, UK-style/
The A-frame, still just visible after the tide has filled the spot in.	Walking back through the mud

A video of surfing in the UK that spans many years and multiple seasons.

Chaos

The beach is usually busy but never super crowded and generally it's orderly. For whatever reason or combination of conditions this wasn't the case today. Total chaos. The pictures don't really do the quality of the surf or the anarchy any justice. The surf was a fun 2ft, occasionally but infrequently 3ft. with a really good peak - wind had swung on onshore by them tie I floated out took some pictures. The line-up was packed, I counted over 40 people on the one peak and manners had been left on the shoreline. It wasn't unusually to have three people dropping in on you in front. Got 3 - 4 waves unmolested but the rest were write offs. If everyone had taken their turn you might have been waiting a while but at least you would have got a clean run of it.

Lifeguards were kept busy

Even on the clear ones it was a game of dodgeums

A glorious day so kind of
difficult to get too up-tight about it

Lots of sharing going on

Casting Back

It's been a while since I last posted and there's a good rationale for this, I'll explain in a post when I feel ready to cover it. In the meantime, for various reasons, I've been trawling through old photos and came across one taken the first time I tried surfing. It's kind of difficult to see but that's me standing up for the first time. I was pretty pleased with myself getting to my feet within an hour and riding the white water and thought I had it mastered but it was a long time before I really got the hang of it. Still learning in fact and don't think I will ever stop.

The odd thing is that I stumbled across this, completely by accident almost 25 years to the day that it was taken (on 25th July, 1988). Which means I've hit the quarter centenary of loving this sport. And it got me thinking about what it is I love about surfing and why it's such a magnetic pastime. Lots of people have tried to capture in words and many far more eloquent people than myself have failed, so I'm not expecting I will nail it in this list.

• It drives you to travel and explore places that you might not visit. If you look at many of the popular beach destinations of the world it was surfers who discovered it first, breaking the ground for those that followed. Bali, Maldives, Mexico, Fiji. Not always a good thing but it's surfers that forged the path.
• You have fun even when it's average. A mate of mine once said that he gave up windsurfing because the combination of conditions needed to make it enjoyable for him got so precise that he only really went out a few times a year. Eventually, as other commitments built up, he wasn't able to go on those days. As a sociable sport I've had fun with a bunch of mates even in 1 - 2ft surf.
• Enjoying it is generally free. You might have to drive but you can rock up at almost any beach and simply jump into the ocean. No court fees, no club memberships.

On reflection I think it's a deeply personal thing but at the end of it all, when you sum it up, it shapes our lives and the life decisions we make in ways that are common to other sports that share the same combination of skill and nature. It has for the past 25 years and no doubt will continue to do so for the next 25.

Darkness, cold, and light

Mid-winter, cold wind rushing from the North West turning the sand into a light crunchy coldness on your feet, relieved as you hit the water. Blustering off shores feathering a 4 - 5ft swell. Acute from the South bringing that scaling drop from solid 5ft in the mid-peak downwards to 3ft on the inside as you pull further away from the swell's energy. Unless you look right where it rises consistently as you flow along the wave to reach higher and higher above you.

Photos were taken on dusk, wrapped up warm with a snowboard jacket and the ISO racked up high. 1600+ giving it a grainy blurredness of old film.

The wind was helping give the rooster tails a boost.	Wobbly but clean.
Some nice lefts sliding through.	Speed blur on the inside section.
Homeward bound	The city glow's all that's left.

Tracking the Blue Line

A super steep rise in the swell forecast today from a current small 1-2ft to a solid 4-6ft by the end of the day. The blue line's the one to watch....

Forecast graph from WillyWeather;

http://www.willyweather.com.au/

Easterly Four to Six

Footage from the surf last Sunday. Some epic rides from Marcus and Charlie and a few unknowns in between. If you recognise yourself in any of these let me know.

A Step Away

Just one pica-point from perfect today with a solid East swell and offshore winds. For the fussy amongst us the wind was a bit on the wrong side of brisk which made take-offs tricky and there were more than a few (very) late drops. Some made it, some ended up getting rolled around in the ocean, boards got broken, and people got humbled.

Injury has kept me landlocked this past week so there's an extra helping of photos and, in a few hours when I get around to editing it, some footage (Charlie was the stand-out on the vid. with three back-to-back barrels on the corner reef). Pete was doing his best to get tenderised; only caught a couple of his waves and both were just in time for getting pole-axed and gently pulled through the rocks.

Had the bomb sound effect all lined up ready for Marcus on a crazy-late take-off that he side-slipped down into, making it in legendary style (this is also on the vid that I'll post later tonight). However, it'd be a shame to miss an opportunity to dust off the effect so here's the vid. of his spaceman free-fall from a similar swell last year*. Photos from today below the video.

* no apologies for the repetition. The man can surf so these moments of re-engaging with gravity warrant attention.

Marcus and the troops going out to do battle

In the eye of the storm

Seagull sweep

There were an insane number of these types of waves

The sets weren't mucking about

Tucked in

Wide view of the point

Stacked up

Big open face

Pre-humbling

About to get pole-axed or slotted?

Wee Trip North of the Border

Chatting to Paul about places we've surfed and got reminded of the superb trip we had up in North Scotland in August 1997. So this is tracking waaaaay back. It was an epic drive up from Bath, via some-place-I-don't-remember in the Midlands where we collected Big G from the train station a mere three hours late. He seemed pretty pleased to see us when we arrived. Especially since most of us didn't have mobile phones to let him know so I reckon he though we'd abandoned him.

We had a night in Glasgow which we navigated without getting hurt, then a further 10 hour drive before finally getting into the water on dusk, which was close to 9pm. The surf was consistently fun for the whole trip, the weather unbelievable, waves uncrowded, locals friendly and the beer cheap. Can't say as much in a positive vein for the hair styles of the times. Please remember it was the 90's before you judge.

 

Open Ocean

Dead South swell, big open ocean feel to the sets with that, "I'm out in deep water" sense to it as you lined up to unfamiliar landmarks. It wasn't really that big, it just had a lot of energy behind it. That sense that it had started its journey somewhere off the coast of Antarctica. The backwash wasn't helping, flicking it from overhead to double overhead as it bounced through. Check the footage below the pictures for the effect.

All of these minimum gripes aside caught a fair few good ones, paddling around a football pitch sized line-up to get into the right spot. The ones you waited for really made it worthwhile. Check the video below the pictures at around the 1min 10sec. mark where Marco caught himself ones of sets worth waiting for.

Open ocean sets

Inside section

Backhand hack

Audience

And here's a short segment of footage;