Croyde, Coombesgate, Clean waves and Kooksurfer

Having arrived in the UK just in time for a cold snap. Saturday morning I headed down to Devon, having not been there for many years I expected a quiet empty Croyde with a few die hard locals braving the cold water in search of a little winter stoke! I couldn't have been more wrong the B&B's were full and there was as much surf buzz in the air as I have ever met in the other Torquay in Victoria, wow! Swells coming tomorrow and people are coming with it.

I found a room in the Thatch, a beautiful old English thatch roofed pub that serves an awesome breaky with a good latte and has great food and ale for that post winter surf warmth.

Having arranged to meet Tom on Sunday from a board some wax and a leash I hired a wettie and headed off to the beach, to my surprise the water wasn't that cold but the wind most definitly was and after some fun little lefts I decided that was enough and headed back to the pub.

Back at the pub with a Cornish Ale and Burger with the lot I soon thawed. Chatting with Alex, a local surfer girl and business entrepeneur I discovered there was avaliable a very useful surfing aid in the form of a Tide calender that her and a freind put together, full of very cool pics and useful info as well as a cool peice of graphic design. So if you are heading down to Devon or live there make sure you buy one and in the mean time look up Kooksurfer on facebook.

Sunday after an awesome breakfast I headed into Braunton to look at Gulfstream surfboards, very beautiful boards, all custom made locally. Later that day as the tide dropped and the swell picked up I headed over to meet Tom at Coombesgate. We were greeted with head high clean waves and being sheltered the wind was fairly light, Tom kindly offered to let me try one his boards and so I decided to start with the simster, It was so busy all these crazy people wanting to get into the ocean in January! and me being one of them. Anyway we paddled out to fairly quiet bank and even though there were a few out the peaks were shifting so the crowd was reasonably spread out and I got a few nice lefts on the simster and a couple of rights on his Bing Dharma which was a really sweet board, lively and fun.

2012

I'm in my office, reflecting on the year that was. It has been a quiet begining to what will be a very busy year, I will travel to the UK this week for four weeks, I will take one board and pick up an Oneil Mutant 4/5 when I get there. I also just read an article by Dane Reynolds about why he left the tour http://www.marinelayerproductions.com/news/article/753 and some of his comments gelled with the way I think, I think.
So it has been that for me surfing has definitely been the pursuit of happiness and in my random search for ultimate board for me, I have ended up with a quiver of rather odd and non mainstream boards. They are in order of big to small as follows a 7'2" hollow timber quad fish, a 6'5" hollow timber single fin based on MP's morning of the earth board, a 6'0" hollow timber single fin that started as a fish and ended up a rounded square and a 5'11" version of the MP with a quad. These are all boards that I have made, right now I have two favourites the 6'5" and the 5'11". Its the feeling these boards empart upon me as I am surfing that are the reason why I like them, they are in many ways effortless in the sense that you don't really need to do anything for them to feel amazing.
This year has also been a year where I have met some amazing and Inspiring people and made some good friends, Mick Sowry whose film Musica Surfica, http://www.greatsoutherncommunications.com.au/index.php?id=57 is a breathtaking and inspirational journey into uncharted water. Also that Mick in his mid 50's is still surfing 8ft plus is incredible. And Maurice Cole whose contribution to surfing for over 30 years and his radical and innovative board designs just speak for themselves, since anyone I know who has one loves it. Then there's Rohan my surf pal who quietly concieves, shapes and surfs his boards and I often think if it wasn't for Ro i'd never have made a board.
I hope that this year continues to be creatively fruitful, I'm sure it will. I have already started to plan the next few boards as well as a few other fun things, after all life should be fun.