Here's last Saturday's column from the Times. I haven't linked to many of them given that not all have a surfing content, but this one, about Surfers Against Sewage, Broadbench and The Gathering, certainly does. Look out for more on the Access Broadbench campaign - it looks as if a head of steam is building.
My mate Steve Lynton, from whom I bought an excellent 9"1' K-Bay longboard last year, sends me news of the Olo Surfboard Tour. I'm hoping one of the boards will come down Sennen way but meanwhile, here's the press release sent to me by Steve.
A loose collective of surfers and wooden surfboard enthusiasts are attempting to bring the first OLO (FP12) surfboard to the UK to ride our unique British waves. Following the Hawaiian tradition of sharing everything and spreading "aloha," we plan to pass this wooden surfboard from guardian surfer to guardian surfer in key surfing areas around the UK - allowing it be ridden in a variety of waves by a wide group of surfers from beginners and groms through to some of the top UK professional watermen and women.
For the
last 20 years underground artisan craftsman Roy
Stewart, based in New Zealand, has been recreating
boards of this style from Paulownia wood and combining traditional board shapes
with more modern design concepts taken from the fields of aerodynamics, fluid
mechanics and hull design.
These surfboards have historically divided the
surfing community; however not many surfers have actually ever ridden one; those
that have all agreed that these are indeed special boards that offer a
completely unique way of surfing waves. It's a lifetime surfing opportunity not
to be missed!
We are hoping that this surfboard will visit the numerous and diverse breaks on all coasts of the UK, spend some time in Ireland and surf the bore up the river Severn over the next 18 months.
This project is being funded through donations by supporters, most of whom will ride the board; we have a target of £1200 to cover the materials and import of the board and with the amazing response we have had already, are already over 75% of the way towards reaching this. We hope to be able to ship the board from New Zealand to the UK in June or July in time for some balmy Summer surfing.
There are opportunities for amateur and professional photographers, artists, film makers as well as surfers to be involved in this project.
To find out more please check out the magicseaweed community, visit our website www.woodensurfboard.co.uk or join our facebook page "olo surfboard tour".
Check out this barrel. Would you be pleased to be in it?
Some people would say that a barrel's a barrel, but many others would agree with Surfers Against Sewage that this sort of pollution in our seas isn't acceptable.
As Andy Cummins, SAS's Campaigns Director, says: "The 11.6 million surfers, waveriders and water users in the UK are potentially great guardians for the UK’s waves and beaches. We are all literally immersing ourselves in the environment we love so much, so we are the first affected by pollution incidents."
The good news, if you agree with Andy (and you should do), is that SAS has just made it easier to report pollution incidents. There's now a Guide to Reporting Pollution Incidents on the SAS site. Check it out and remember it next time you encounter filth on our coastline.
Tom Lowe is rumoured to have suffered a second dislocation of his left shoulder at Teahupoo.
The St Ives-bred ripper, big wave charger and all round decent bloke is said to have been surfing Chopes at size when a stand-up paddle board being ridden by Laird Hamilton somehow hit him in the shoulder. Cue intense pain as the shoulder was torn from its socket. Hamilton reportedly did his best to help Lowe put the shoulder back in while in the water. Now, though, Lowe is on a plane back to the UK, where it looks as if an operation awaits him.
At this stage, this news is hearsay, and there's no suggestion that Hamilton, Lowe or anyone else was culpable. But if it's true that the shoulder has again been dislocated, here's hoping that Lowey makes a swift recovery.
Image of Tom Lowe with kind permission of Mickey Smith.
Those of us who've suffered from Surfer's Ear know just how disorientating, depressing and downright painful it is. I had hideous ear pain in Mexico about five years ago. Since then, I've been mostly OK, but one man who wasn't so lucky is Olly Daglish, who invented the Ollypop. Click here to check out Olly's informative and well-written blog on what it's like to have an op for Surfer's Ear. And maybe, as I am now going to try and do, wear those ear plugs.
Image of Carlos Burle on an Ollypop towel courtesy of Ollypop.
Here's a nice Antipodean Perspective on Kernow. It's by Mick Jardine, an Australian who spent time in Cornwall a while ago.
I'm stoked to run such an upbeat, positive piece, especially since I'm bidding farewell to regular blogging about surfing. Things will appear here from time to time, but there might be a fair old gap between posts. Vaya con dios - and may you be as stoked as Mick Jardine, wherever you are, and whatever waves you're riding.
Swells move slower but lack nothing in density. It’s colder, obviously. The light is softer, lacking the harshness of home, and the landscape different. Greener and more verdant sure, but it’s the other sights that stand out in my memory, sights foreign to me yet things likely to melt into the everyday drumbeat of local life. The ancient track marks of human habitation, the ceaseless sweep of eight metre tides, muddy paths, a slate coloured ocean under a slate coloured sky.
And the waves? In a word, varied. From the very bad to the, at times, very, very good.
It has now been three and a half years since my Cornish excursion came to an end, and I returned home to Western Australia with a Westcountry lass in tow, yet I think about the place all the time. I check the surf cams, read Cornish news, find little pockets of the coast I’d like to call home; such is the imprimatur it has left on me. This is strange for two reasons. Firstly, not only was it not meant to happen this way first time around until luck and good fortune intervened, but my continued love affair with all things Cornish should probably have died out by now from my perspective as a surfer. After all, WA is a blessed place to call home if you surf; a massive and relatively empty coastline, temperate conditions and abundant (and often huge) swells. People the world over pine to surf the very breaks I have within my grasp as a WA local, yet I do often still wonder what Polzeath and any number of other Cornish breaks might be like on any given day.
So why on earth did I fall so head over heels for Cornwall? Let me count the ways. Firstly, the surf is actually quite good a lot of the time, even more often than locals give it credit for I think. Sure you’re probably not going to get stand up tubes in boardshorts too often, feel warm and flexible any time between November and March or see someone from the WCT out at your local break. But guess what? Nor do most surfers other than committed travellers and lucky locals in a few parts of the world, and wave quality is rarely the issue it’s made to be in the UK in terms of developing proper technique and a professional surfing career. If you don’t believe me, Kelly Slater’s home beach in Florida, Cocoa Beach, ain't no Superbank for the uninformed. And Cornish surf, for the very same reasons that means the swell lacks the punch of other coasts - a long Continental shelf, proximity to the North Atlantic storm track (translating to lots of semi junky swells, from small to large, as opposed to groomed groundswells Indo-style) – is highly rippable. You can manhandle sections you’d probably avoid hitting elsewhere; the lack of push forces you to generate your own speed and helps improve technique when channelled properly; outside the summer holidays lineups are reasonably chilled still so you can catch lots of waves; and wetsuits have now improved to the point that the cold is not the performance limiter it used to be. So, even for an Australian, I can honestly say I had a lot of great surfs in Cornwall and that’s coming from a reasonably high base of expectation.
What else? The people, both proper third generation locals and transplants, undoubtedly contributed immensely to making the two years I spent there so enjoyable. There is enormous synergy between Western Australia and Cornwall (and their peoples) in terms of attitudes to life generally, and non locals in particular. We both reside as far away from the rest of our country as is possible to be, spurring independence of thought and action, and meaning we’re both looked upon as ‘outsiders’ within our own borders at times. There is a shared disregard for what is valued elsewhere and life is seen to move a little slower. And in Cornwall, much as in WA, this translates into vibrant local communities (not withstanding the second home debate), entrepreneurial thinkers and grounded people. In my case, I can credit the local community around Polzeath and most notably Pete and Jane Craske, for letting me into their world and I appreciate it immeasurably. To this day, I consider many of the people I met during this time of my life to be true friends.
There are other things I value about
Cornwall and Cornish life – the history, the way so much is tucked into such a
small place, the little villages - each of which add another layer to the
fabric of the place. A place I may yet call home still, and a place that if not
quite the lucky country, is definitely the lucky county.
Mick Jardine is a 3 times Western Australian State Surfing Champion based in Perth,
WA. His travels have taken him all around his home state and
Australia, plus numerous surf trips to Indonesia, South Africa, Hawaii, mainland
USA, Mexico, the UK, France, Spain and Portugal. Living in Cornwall for two years
in 2004/5, Mick was a surf coach at Polzeath beach but has since re-located
home. Now working in Marketing, Mick continues to spend as much time as possible
away from his desk, and in the water.
Earlier this evening I surfed Spot G for a couple of hours. It was waist-to-chest high on the sets, balmy, glassy, still and sun-kissed. The sea was crystal clear, there were scores of basking sharks in the bay and only a few people in the line-up. For about an hour or so, I shared a left-hand peak with a lady I know only as Dr Sarah. It was bliss. After a good session at Sennen last night too, I thanked my lucky stars to live in West Penwith, and thanked them again to be able to surf.
It was so good to be in the water tonight that I almost felt sane again. But the Patient lurks...
To: My Instructing Solicitors (Messrs Casualty & Co)
From: David King's Bench QC
Re: The Patient Wade - Counsel's Opinion
My Instructing Solicitors tasked me with analysing the legal issues arising from the case of The Patient Wade (hereafter 'the Patient'). The primary concern of Instructing Solicitors was whether, in denying the Patient access to his surf blog, the medical staff of The Facility, led by Professor Pangloss, were guilty of interfering with the Patient's right to freedom of expression. Instructing Solicitors took the view that owing to the Patient's increasingly erratic behaviour, which culminated in the incident with the toy dog and the BBQ, he had scuppered such right to freedom of expression as may once have been his. In other words, a madman knows not of what he speaks, so how can he have a right to say it?
In my view, this analysis is flawed. Thanks to sundry laws that only I, as a barrister, know about, it is not correct to say that because an individual is mad he is disallowed from speaking. Indeed, I would go further and aver that the law expressly protects the right of the mad to speak. How else would we have seen the flourishing of such eminence grises of the literary world as the Patient himself?
There is, in short, no legal means of restricting the Patient from writing his surf blog.
However, in a footnote annexed by Instructing Solicitors to page 579 of their Brief, I see that the Patient ignored the advice of various doctors, as well as Mr P. Pilot, and went surfing on both Sunday and Monday. After the first session, the Patient is alleged to have said to Aerial Attack: "I'm stoked! The knee held up! What a result. Back in the water after just two weeks. And I got a couple of very nice head high rights. Can't argue with that at all." However, things took a turn for the worse on Monday. The Patient, seeing his son Harry drop in on him on a small left-hander at the car park end, decided to let him have the wave rather than, as was his first thought, to run him over. However, in turning away to the right he contrived to double the big toe on his right foot over itself so badly that it is now black, blue and swollen. Indeed, as the Patient told Mr J.H. A'Sbo: "I'm sure it's broken but there's no point going to hospital because, having previously broken a metatarsal in my other foot, I know they'll do nothing and just tell me to get on with it. This is not a result. I'm now limping on both legs."
I took the liberty, upon reading this, of investigating further. It transpires that the normally mild-mannered Patient rebuked a bodyboarder earlier during the same session. The Patient made the drop on a set wave of around seven or eight feet, bottom turned and came nicely off the top, only to see, as he set himself for another bottom turn, a kamikaze drop in by an unidentified sponger. The Patient flicked his board away from the sponger's head with inches to spare, and, in the process, came off his board. His ride over, the Patient was irked by this shameless slice of ignorance of surfing etiquette. As he paddled back out he pondered whether to say anything to the sponger, a man whom he'd never seen before and who, he would venture, is not from these parts. He did so, reproaching him in polite but firm terms, for, as he verily maintains, "My dear chap, my primary concern is for the safety of other water users. People can get hurt by doing things like that. Now go away and learn the drop in rule you total moron."
However, a number of people, including Jill Pierre and the Patient's son Harry, said that the Patient was not always innocent of the charge of dropping in himself. They claim that the Patient's latest injury is, in fact, a karmic thing. Or, in Harry's words: "Dad, aka 'the Fat Hawaiian' as I call him - because he's fat and quite tanned, not because he surfs like a Hawaiian - has dropped in on me more times than I've had hot dinners in Santa Cruz. At least now that he's injured again this won't happen for a while. Then again, who's going to take me to the beach?"
Having reviewed this vignette from the life of the Patient, it is, after all, my conclusion that he should be banned from his surf blog for another three months. He is clearly a danger to himself and has no conception of how to steer clear of injury. If he does not have the incentive of writing his surf blog, perhaps he will manage to stop surfing, making the beaches once again safe and tranquil for all concerned. Maybe, indeed, he should be encouraged to return to one of his former passions, mountaineering. On ridges such as that which is pictured, he will, as he contemplates a 3,000ft sheer drop, have plenty of time to reflect on karma.
I trust that this advice is, as ever, as useful as it is excellent. If my Instructing Solicitors have any questions, they know where to find me. Meanwhile please remit a cheque for £2.78m + VAT to my chambers (you will be pleased to note that I have not billed for disbursements of 74p).
Yours,
DKB QC
The Patient remains at large but Mr P. Pilot has news - and it's fresh from the inner recesses of the clinically sane...
Interested parties may take comfort in knowing that in an attempt to return this blog to its former high standards of sobriety, good cheer and astute hedge fund-free analysis, I managed to persuade The Patient Wade to answer his phone yesterday. Upon hearing his voice, I feared the worst, for it sounded as if Jim the Jellyfish had got stuck in his throat, but, after some moments, the Patient did in fact talk to me about surfing.
I congratulated him on his recent piece on Chops Lascelles, and let him know that we had received many positive comments about it. My intention, in saying this, was to inspire him to pick up the pen again and get on with writing a new article for us. But the Patient's only reply was a mumbled groan about surf journalism being dead in the water. He said that everything has been done before, even the things that haven't been done at all, and started ranting about his next feature being about the surf potential on the Island of Doctor Moreau. As his editor, I had only one response to this, and it contained two words.
However, I would like to reassure regular readers of this formerly estimable surf blog that though Patient's mind is quite possibly twisted beyond repair, Get Carter does contain a surf scene (according to Wade, anyway), though it's a shame that the car park is being demolished, and also that a flicker of hope exists in Wade's insistence that though he may be on crutches, and though it is against the combined advice of the doctors of Newquay, Thurso and Patagonia, his (left) knee will be soon be good enough to surf on. Indeed, Patient Wade even laughingly said: "At least, Monsieur Pilot, I ain't missing any waves just now! Not even the combined might of The Gill, the Mackinnon and your own good self can convince me I've missed a single wave!"
And so, as the Patient could be heard eating yet another jellyfish, this has brought me to a decision which I hope Messrs Fonseca and Pangloss will accept. For the next couple of weeks I will scour these fair isles in search of surf, with the sole aim of taunting The Patient Wade. He's a competitive old bugger, in a Walter Mitty-esque kind of a way, and he won't be able to resist images of a few good waves. They might even restore his faith. So here, without further ado, is a fun little gem that Sam Smart and I came across. Enjoy, Patient Wade, enjoy!
Mr P Pilot
