Surf Trip 3

To keep prices down I purchased a semi-geodesic tent and headed West in the new motor. The journey took longer than usual because everyone else in the UK seemed to be trying to get to the South West of England. We passed a bus on fire and a smashed up caravan which caused us to get stuck in some minor traffic jams.

After being turned away from one campsite we headed over to a camp site in Harlyn Bay, which is a great little place to surf. Here is the new car, semi-geodesic tent in all its glory and the board layed out on the lawn –

Living the Dream

That evening I had a little surf at Harlyn Bay in what I thought were pretty small waves but were actually going to turn out to be the biggest of the weekend! It was pretty late so didn’t get much time out there and it also started raining so we headed back to the campsite.

The next day and the waves weren’t looking so good so we headed all the way down to Sennan, on the tip of the South West. The waves were no better here but went out there anyway, its too far to come and not get in the water.

Me on the shortboard in the ‘lineup’ with the mal boys

Here I am on the biggest set of the day –

Next set was 2x overhead

On the way back we somehow managed to come across the nicest beach in the world (if waves aren’t your thing). Here is the secret beach at an undisclosed location. I will definetly be coming back to this place when the weather is good –

Secret Beach

On Monday we headed down to Fistral Beach in Newquay where the Ripcurl Boardmasters had just started. This was my chance to get noticed by the sponsers and go pro. However, the waves were even smaller than the day before. So we hired some mals and sat in the water. I learnt a nice new trick of riding the board backwards and then spinning it around when you get in the wave. This did not really seem to impress the sponsers and it nearly resulted in me taking out other surfers as it involves surfing backwards!

I eventually got the courage to go out on my board and hang with the pros. There was one guy who was either a big fan of Volcom or sponsered by them because he was in a Volcom wetsuit and had Volcom written all over his board and was also amazingly good at surfing 0.5ft waves! Some of the guys out there were getting speed on the waves and doing 360ies! That is a real show of professional surfing when you look at the conditions. The event goes on for a few more days yet and the swell is set to increase so hopefully they will get something. You can watch it live at Ripcurl.com.

My chance at ‘getting noticed’ down the drain

My shortboard surfing was not happening, it was too small and I was too tired from maling the entire morning, so I left the water down but not defeated, I will return for the next masters. Drove back in the afternoon and the car is fine! 750miles driven this weekend, a lot of travelling for little waves! Bring on Biarritz, 19th-22nd August 2005!!!!