BLU @ GWITH

Watched a few heats of the BLU Sunset Surf Classic from the cliff on Saturday.

There was some corduroy for the event.

Nellie decided the approaching collie was much more interesting than watching Ben Skinner in the final.

JUST DO IT!

OCTO

October has delivered some stunning days, with a few waves too... (Saturday @ Godrevy).

BLIZZARD

Blizzard the Husky pup by Frank Hurley, Antarctica 1914-1916.

CORNISH CLIFF

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ROOFTOPS

Lower East Side Rooftops - 2011

I really like these very urban yet serenely beautiful paintings by Kim Cogan.

SURF>BOOKS

I have no idea what's going on here - but I like it.

OLDEN DAYS

If I could choose a fantasy superpower it would be 'time-travel' so I could go back in time and hang out at the same beaches where I hang out now, but before the crowds...

Anyone recognise this place?

1890. Fishing boats pulled up on the sand & shorefront gardens.

1893. Distinctive cliff-line hasn't changed (but skyline has).

1935. This'll give it away...

1960. Daytrips to the seaside.

FALLING LEAVES

Millais - Autumn Leaves.

As Autumn leaves settle once more, I'm sorry to see Summer fade away, always too short. Seasons change, hold tight to the light for a few more weeks. By then I'll be ready.

FINLESS WONDERINGS

Derek Hynd drawing lines.

Nearly 10 minutes long but worth it to hear Derek Hynd describe his thoughts and feelings on how going finless has opened up new possibilities for his surfing...

SUNDAY ROAST

Swell wrapping around the headland.

... and still working through the high tide.

ps: UK Open Bodysurfing comp was on & folk were bodysurfing 6-8ft!

SLASH!

Another Tumblr goodie...

I like aerial photos and I like frontal cutbacks.

TALKING OF BURLY...

END OF THE ROAD

Teahupo'o...

I'm not really interested in pro surfing - but have to admit that I am interested in seeing this place go off in the next day or two...

CLIFFWALK

A walk along the cliffs last night...

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CROWDED SEA

China's 'Dead Sea' indoor swimming pool, can accommodate 10,000 visitors at once.

Went for a little surf last night, and when I say 'little' I actually mean 'tiny'. But there were a few mini peelers to be had, the problem wasn't catching waves, the bigger issue was trying to swerve a path through the crowd!

SOUP KITCHEN

February 17th 2008.

This pic of R going out for a clean winter session a few years ago is hanging on our kitchen noticeboard. What are the orangey streaks on the print? Let's just say that one day there was an incident with a pan of tomato soup...

BALMY PALMY

I'm quietly obsessing about palm trees at the moment.

WAVESHARE

... another tumblr pic.

AWOL

See ya in a couple of weeks...

THROWN IN THE TOWEL

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My faithful old beach towel - faded & threadbare - finally got retired at the weekend.

This Raymond Pettibon towel would surely make a fine replacement.

Do clickage if you wanna read the little writing at the top.

BELOVED

Forever.

Parts of Kernow have been rubbed smooth and characterless by the many millions of 'relocation' pound notes that were used to transform Cornwall into a handy suburb-by-the-sea for wealthy urbanites. But there remains a place that despite the braying crowds of incomers is still resolutely itself; quite scruffy, a bit rough around the edges and often just a few inches away from anarchy.

It's a place of high unemployment matched by equally high self-regard. A place where three generations from local families still live. A place that knows its own place, in fact.

A small village in a coastal valley where a handful of simple beachside flats - built over forty years ago - are still to this day occupied by low wage-earners and those on benefits. Not pretty buildings by any means, but they're certainly not the generic, unimaginative, over-developed, over-priced 'lifestyle' apartments that have appeared in almost every other coastal town.

Circa 1955.

Unlike so many other similar spots up and down the coast that have become empty places, occupied only occasionally by owners that live many miles away. This understated little settlement has quietly carried on being home to its inhabitants.

It also happens to have been blessed with a beach that consistently manages to produce some of the best beachbreak waves around. But beware, the best of those sweet, steep waves will not be freely available, for they will nearly always be ridden by the best surfers - those who happen to live within striking distance - and they will be on it every time there's a hint of swell.

But it's a special place to me for all the above reasons and more, and I fucking love it.

ENZED WATERFALL

Go-oooooooo!

Nice little set of photos from the land of the long white cloud.

THE BIG BLUE

Jean Reno as Enzo

Should watch this again as well..

37°2 LE MATIN

Betty et Zorg

Must watch this again - makes me feel like Summer again...

i'm thinking about it...

FOXY

via tumblr

GLOBAL CORNWALL

Global Cornwall @ the Asylum 25th July 2011

Event coming soon - with Kneehigh & Chris Hines involved you know it's gonna be interesting as well as good fun.

DEAD SURFERS

Panda Bear - Surfer's Hymn. A tribute to surfers taken by the sea apparently.

SURF GEETAR

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A lot of surfers play guitar - and a few even play while they're actually surfing.
Wondering just how they manage to do it..? Paddle with the instrument strapped across their back, followed by a very swift grab and strum perhaps?

Donavon Frankenreiter

THE LOKE

Whenever the surf got big, he would appear, without fail. Often there would be no-one out at all; just too wild and wooly, whitewater everywhere, any green waves were marbled with ribbons of white. "Not rideable," was the common consensus on the balcony of the surf club. But he'd stroll across the grass of the beachside reserve often barechested even in the Sydney winter. With his thick brown hair swept straight back from his forehead and a full beard he reminded me a bit of Grizzly Adams. Always in plain red boardshorts, usually a smoke in one hand, his yellowed board under the other arm it was impossible to judge his age. Maybe thirty something or possibly even a decade older. The lack of any grey in the whiskers and the taut athletic body coupled with a brightness in his eyes and a lightness to his step made him ageless. On first name terms with all the usual beachfront crew he was never the less a bit of a lone wolf, always traveling solo.

Most surfers would be fizzing with anticipation as they approached the shore, trotting like nervous ponies across the sands. He never hurried. Just walked casually to the northern side of the bay, not even seeming to check the surf on the way. Not that there was much to see apart from lumpy, slow-moving mounds of water. Occasionally the swirling mass would line up and a wave would form way out the back, offering the chance of a clean face amongst the chaos, but it would be a deceptively heavy, seething, unorganised roller that could just as quickly fold under its own weight and dump itself in an explosion of frothing whitewater.

At the water's edge he'd nonchalantly flick his cigarette butt away, drop his board in the sand and tie his leggie around his ankle. Then without haste or panic he'd lunge into the shoredump and stroke swiftly toward the rip that ran out past the sea pool. With the big southerly swell pouring into the bay, the current was moving fast back out along the north side and he was soon swept past the rocks and out into the middle of the bay.

Soon he was just a small, distant shape, defiant amongst the heaving green and white. He would disappear from sight, nowhere to be seen and then reappear fifty metres away, paddling purposefully even further out to sea as a huge set growled in from around the headland. Up and over the first unbroken wave he went, just a sliver silhouetted against a long wall of rising water. As the next wave seemed to draw itself up in menacingly slow-motion he spun around and paddled hard down the dark slope. The wall grew taller and he actually drifted back up the face with the tremendous flow of water. But gravity took over as the wave toppled forward and he sprang to his feet as the lip snarled all around him. He dropped almost vertically down the face and dug a deep bottom turn. Still, he seemed at ease, although there was now a vitality in his movements, a restrained energy to his body that allowed him to surf confidently with power yet smoothly without wasted effort. So many of the other local surfers, even the good ones, moved too jerkily, overdid everything and were self conscious. Whereas even here, in this angry sea, as he swooped back up the face of a wave that was at least triple overhead, he was surfing beautifully. Just the right amount of torque to send a fan of spray out over the back of the lip, a perfectly timed turn followed by a smooth flowing down the line carve, a long arcing cutback and a quick flickout before the section slammed itself onto the inside bank. It was just text book surfing in the most unorthodox of conditions, the fluid definition of grace under pressure.

He'd paddle back out through the maelstrom to get a couple more subtley epic rides against all the odds and then catch one in. Seemingly satisfied that he'd done justice to both himself and the swell. Back on the beach, he'd maybe have a quick chat to some of the crew before strolling off down one of the side streets, barefoot, still dripping wet from the sea. As he never came by car I assume he lived nearby - a real local you might say.

YES!-terday

More days like that please..

RETRO-TASTIC

Today's waste of time...

1977 - Ty Page and pals.

1979 - Eddie Elguera.

1978 - Ellen Berryman & Bob Mohr. Tight and tash-tastic.

1978 - Bobby Piercy.

1978 - Stacey Peralta shot by Warren Bolster strobe cam.

1979 - Vans advert.

Scarily I remember most of these. With no videos, DVDs or internets in those days the US mags were the only way to access the info and like a lot of kids I used to study those mags for hours, and when I say 'study' I mean 'STUDY!' I would have confidently gone on Mastermind with '70s Skateboard Magazines' as my specialist subject!

AS PREDICTED...

This was Lusty Glaze on Sunday morning.

For once the predictions were spot on - fresh swell, offshore winds and sunshine all day. Hope y'all got some...

Loads of interesting old boards at the Vintage Surfboard Meet too.

VINTAGE BOARDS

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If you like vintage surfboards - get along to Newquay this weekend where Alasdair from the excellent Vintage Surfboard Collector blog has organised a gathering.

INTERVIEW - JOHN ADAMS

John, Sennen 1975.

John Adams was one of the original pioneers of the West Cornwall surf scene in the 60s. Along with co-founding the Sennen Surf Club and the BSA, he was a music promoter and film-maker producing and distributing action sports films from his base in Penzance. Here he shares a little bit of personal history from those days...

John, where are you from originally?
I grew up in Yorkshire and spent my teenage summer holidays working in my mothers snack bar in Whitby, where I was allowed to buy the weekly 78 records for the juke box. Guy Mitchell, Frankie Lane, David Whitfield ... THEN Bill Haley, Elvis Presley etc. circa 1957/58. In September ’58 I went for three years to Courtfield Catering College in Blackpool where I studied Hotel and Catering Management. Whilst there I used to organise our socials and dances.

What turned you onto surfing?
We would get jobs in the summer holidays in kitchens and restaurants. My close friend Bruce from St. Annes had a friend who had come to St.Ives to paint so we decided to try and get a summer job at the Tregenna Castle. They wouldn’t take us but we found work as joint second chefs at the Grenville Hotel Bude where there existed a surf club and the lifeguard was an icon called Peter Cokes, eventually head of the Cornwall Surf Rescue organisation. A couple of Aussies worked there as well and they introduced me to body surfing and surfing with a belly board and fins. I was hooked from the start.

You had a music venue in Penzance called the Winter Garden and put on loads of big name bands didn’t you? Can you tell us how that came about?
After working in Bude, Bruce and I went to Germany where we worked for eighteen months at two top class hotels in Cologne and we learnt to speak German and later French. When I returned my family were offered the Winter Garden Dance Hall in Penzance from someone in Scarborough who had bought it as an investment in case he lost his licence for his other business. I took it on with the idea of developing the catering expertise that I had acquired and did banquets, buffets, club socials, wedding receptions as well as running the weekly dances. I started Beat nights on Fridays and booked bands such as Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, The Fortunes and many other local and national acts.

Can you remember your first green wave?
I had my first green wave at Sennen.

You were also involved in creating the BSA (British Surfing Association) weren’t you?
I met a couple of brothers, Mike and Tony Hole, who I had been at school with. They knew I was interested in surfing and we agreed to buy Malibu boards. At the time Bilbo had a three month waiting period so we got our boards from Fred Bickers in Newquay and paid £30.00 each for them (a lot of money in those days). We were the first surfers at Sennen and formed the Sennen Surf Club. We met other surfers from Porthmeor (who nicknamed us ‘the Sennen Spastics’!), Porthtowan and Newquay.
Mike ran a clothes boutique in Penzance called Modern Man and with Tony this became the office for the British Surfing Association of which we were founder members and Mike became Secretary.

John Adams (left), pictured with Dave Swift who wrote the renowned ‘Talking Surfers Blues’ original song featured in the 1976 epic ‘Getting Wet’.