Surf Nation

Costa Rica - one for Jonty and Tup

 
There's some serious driftwood here at Playa Grande.

Back in West Penwith, I hear that Tup 'Boardshorts at Spot G Today, Honest' Newman has got his revamped website up and running. There's some good stuff on it, so check it out.

Costa Rica Surf Trip (2): Figuring Things Out

Yesterday afternoon I had one of the worst surfs of the past year. Harry and I paddled out into onshore head high surf at Playa Grande and I had a nightmare. My wave selection was dreadful and those waves that I did catch mutated into a weird ledge shape, so that as soon as you'd paddled and caught the wave it adopted a horizontal platform structure, which instantaneously became a vertical and, in my case, totally unmakeable drop. Harry figured it out but I came in depressed and feeling like I'd rather venture in search of exotic parrots or even a big old Costa Rican crocodile than go for another surf.

But today's another day. We were up at 5.30 and found Playa Grande looking glassy, clean and 3-4ft with about 10 people out. I misread my first wave, got spanked and thought 'Here we go again.' But my second wave was a nice right-hander and despite a couple more nailings over the next two and a half hours, I emerged having had a good surf. In a large part this was thanks to Colin Briers of the Una Ola surf lodge, who joined me in the line up, with his girlfriend Andrea, and got me sitting a lot further inside than I had been. The outside waves were bigger but less regular; the inside wave was fun, fast and frequent. My wave count went up hugely, albeit that, in a remarkable near death experience, Andrea ran me over while I was paddling back out. Astonishingly, no contact, between boards or her fins and my head, was made. Truly, the surf Gods were with me today.

However, as is the way of things, there's a lot to figure out at a new spot. Playa Grande is a punchy beachbreak whose waves change their shape and direction at the last moment. Again, I'm reminded of Porthcurno, but the difference (apart from surfing in boardshorts) is that here, if you get the line right from takeoff, you will have a good ride, as opposed to finding that just about every wave closes out. By the end of the session I was getting it right and even found myself thinking that I was getting on pretty well with the Surftech 7"2', a board which is a lot lighter than those I have at home and which, for a man of my stature (or, as the kids put it, fatness) is fairly loose under foot. Needless to say, after one lovely right which walled up with exquisite glistening beauty and a couple of good lefts, I got a couple of nailings just to remind me that there's a lot more to turning up at a decent spot like this and having it wired immediately. Well, there's a lot more to it for the likes of me (pictured thanks to Colin).

More soon but to Mr Penfold, you were right. Both Harry and I have severe inner thigh 'we don't surf in boardshorts' rash.

Costa Rica Surf Trip (1)

Here we are at Una Ola in Costa Rica.

We travelled for something like 22 hours in total, flying with Continental from Heathrow to Houston and then getting a flight down to Liberia in northern Costa Rica. The flight from Heathrow was great - it was the first time I'd flown with Continental but the service was good and they've got all kinds of whizzy games on board by which to wile away the time. The transfer at Houston was a bit hectic and we were fairly strung out by the time we eventually arrived at about 10.00 pm Costa Rican time on Saturday night. It was also my 43rd birthday and my beloved elder son, Harry (he who has come out of January and February surfing retirement) gave me an excellent gift with which to start the trip, a stinking cold. I'm not sure that I'd recommend flying half way around the world with an evil bug from hell, aka your 13-year-old son, as an ideal way to celebrate a birthday, but we're here now and after a couple of days of sunshine and waves, life is a whole lot better.

The set up at Una Ola is superb. Despite the unbelievable heat here, the comfortable rooms are cool with the property built in traditional Spanish courtyard style. They look down on a pool, which is perfect for apres-surf or just a cooling dip. Karen and Elliot have been enjoying this a lot and there are also some great cycle trails on Una Ola's doorstep.

Una Ola is run by Colin Briers, a Californian surfer with Irish ancestry, with his business partner Justin Chitman. Colin is an interesting bloke - he's steeped in surf culture (George Freeth, unsurprisingly, is his hero), knows his way round a boxing ring and, like Tom Anderson, formerly worked as a private investigator. He grew up surfing the breaks near LA but quit his job in search of a better life two and a half years ago. I reckon he's found it. Una Ola is 200 yards from the main peak at Playa Grande, a quality, punchy beachbreak which reminds me of both Hossegor and dear old Porthcurno. It's not a spot for longboarding and is a place where you need to make a quick, angled takeoff and a keep a fairly high line, otherwise you'll be bottom turning into a closeout. Harry and I have been feeling our way into the line up (friendly, with a lot of Americans) and have got two good surfs under our belt, with a trip to a nearby rivermouth break in the offing later today. There are heaps of boards at Colin and Justin's place - Harry's riding a 6"0' roundtail Kaos while I'm on a 7"2' Surftech Takayama egg. Here I am about to hit the water at 6.20 this morning (yes, I was up that early - shocking but true).

And here's the kind of wave that Harry and I paddled out into.

PS Thanks to all for birthday wishes on Facebook. I haven't been able to access FB yet but hope to reply soon. Meanwhile, Vaya con dios (Future Primitive ends with this line but they genuinely say it in these parts). 

Costa Rica Surf Trip is Go

Off we go to Costa Rica. Internet access permitting I'll put a few posts up while there so that you can see how the surfing goes. We'll also be heading up a volcano, down a waterfall and through a jungle canopy, so there'll be a few non-surfing images up, too.

Needless to say, we can't wait. The image above is from the Una Ola surf lodge where we'll be staying. I think the break above is right on our doorstep and it looks mighty fine to me.

Meanwhile, over in Tasmania the first event in the O'Neill Cold Water Classic series is underway. I visited Tassie a long time ago - back in 1989, to be precise. I spent nearly six weeks trekking in the wilderness of the South West National Park. In fact, now I think about it, I nearly died there. An ambitious solo climb of a mountain - ambitious because I had to run up it and get back down again before darkness fell - went somewhat out of kilter when I realised I was only a third of the way down as the sun set. Cue an awful lot of grief in the pitch black. Wombats didn't seem cuddly anymore and as for the crayfish in the lake which I fell into, I think they should eat each other, not humans. I fell over countless times, bruised myself to bits and ended up with a nice blend of shock and hypothermia.

But - and no one will see this line coming - I survived to tell the tale. Which I haven't, until now, save for one night in a bar in Hobart when I'd finished communing with the wilderness. But that's another story. Meanwhile, happy surfing to all my mates in West Penwith, and put 17th April in your diaries - my wife Karen has a show of some very fine work at Essex 'Son of Skewjack' Tyler's gallery in Mousehole. Not that I'm biased or anything.

Tom Lowe: the UK's fittest pro surfer?

I trained today with Tom Lowe and Stef Harkon. It was sunny, it was windy, they were super-fit, and I was knackered. Let me explain.

Actually, it's quite simple. St Ives-bred Tom Lowe is in his mid-20s and unless you've been living on Mars, you'll know that he's one of the foremost chargers this country has ever seen. Stef Harkon is also based in St Ives and has for the past 25 years been a UK surf-skate legend. I'm not sure which one of them is fitter. Stef is 45 but is the kind of man for whom five hours' exercise is a warm-up. Tom is regularly surfing the kind of waves that the overwhelming majority of people would find terrifying just to watch, let alone be close enough to catch a whiff of salt spray. To surf those waves, which he often does with Fergal Smith and in the company of top lensman Mickey Smith, Tom has to be ultra-fit. Since dislocating his left shoulder in a hold-down at Aileens seven weeks ago, Tom and Stef have created a training regime that is enough to make most grown men weep. And remarkably, after just seven weeks Tom seems fully fit again, with no discernible shoulder trouble (in contrast to that which afflicts my right shoulder, which I dislocated six times when I was his age and still gives me grief now). Anyway, here's the day's breakdown of events:

Stef in the morning: went for a run. Probably loads of other exercise too.

Tom in the morning: surfed Porthmeor for three hours.

Me: Sat in my chair all day and wrote. Did the washing up at lunchtime by way of a break.

4.00pm: all converged at my house in Porthcurno, me having earlier nipped to Sennen for a quick, but fruitless, surf check with Tup Newman. We then ran to a nearby beach whose name cannot be mentioned. From there it was along the cliff path to the Minack. Then we ran down the Minack steps, taking care not to fall and die thanks to my two dogs, Rio and Maya, who were running with us. At the bottom of the steps, Stef led the way as we ran back up. I was beginning to fade but luckily Rio decided to attack a small dog, giving me the perfect excuse to stop, put her on her lead and try and catch my breath.

In the Minack car park Stef and Tom were already doing what Stef calls 'boosters' - large jumps from one white line of the car parking spaces to another. My quad tear wouldn't hold up for this, so instead I did squat jumps and press ups. They did some of these too. More of them than me.

Then we ran back down the Minack steps (for people who have not been here: these steps are very steep) and got onto the gorgeous white sands of Porthcurno. We ran across the beach and scraped some lines in the sand. Then Stef set us on a particularly evil exercise - holding your breath and crawling over the sand up the hill. This was a killer. I suffered. Tom and Stef looked like they could do it all day. They did four sets, to my three, at twice the speed of mine.

After some more exercises on the beach we ran up to the area of sand and grass by the lifeguard hut. Press ups and squats ensued. Then it was a jog to the car park by the museum, where Stef produced an 8KG medicine ball. We hurled this around for the next 25 minutes or so. It was heavy. My arms ached. Everything ached. The pair of them were barely breaking sweat. It was time to run back to my place. I was knackered.

Now, if I'd only done this with Tom, I could cop out and let myself off, saying that he's a super-fit big wave surfer in the prime of his life, while I'm an increasingly ancient amateur sportsman who's currently suffering from a quad tear and a twisted bunch of nerves in my back. I could also make excuses about how I have to sit and write for hours at a time, which isn't ideal for intense training sessions.

But the fact is that Stef is older than me. And he's as fit as Tom. And, in truth, our session probably lasted about an hour in total. It was the kind of thing that they'd do not so much as a warm-up but by way of a few stretches.

The moral(s) of the story?

1. Any surf companies out there who want a top coach for their sponsored riders should get in touch with Stef Harkon.

2. Tom Lowe is not only a decent and likeable bloke, without a trace of the too-cool-for-school arrogance that some surfers without even a fraction of his ability seem to think is their birthright, but he also demonstrates the truth of that old adage: if you want to succeed at something, you've got to be prepared to put a lot of hard work in behind the scenes. In other words, no pain, no gain. Thanks to his dedication, Tom might just be the fittest pro surfer in Britain.

3. If I want to be anywhere near the levels of fitness of Stef and Tom, I need to do the circuit we did today - every day. I think I can do this. After all, it was just an hour. Surely that hour exists? Doesn't it?

Or is that another injury I can feel...

The superb images of Tom Lowe here are courtesy of a man every bit as admirable as Lowey, Mickey Smith.

This is a Wipeout

"Carlos keeps us on our toes."

So says Ernie Capbert from Finisterre, the St Agnes-based, very sound and very good clothing company who have Carlos Burle on their books as an ambassador.

There's one young Englishman, though, who is up there with the best when it comes to pushing the limits. Step forward Tom Lowe, the St Ives-based charger who looks set to make a name for himself just as Burle has done. There's talk of me doing some training with him this week, to see what's involved in being fit enough to withstand the kind of beating that Burle is demonstrating as all in a day's work. I'm ever so slightly apprehensive about this, and am quietly hoping that a certain Stef Harkon, currently helping Lowe with a training and rehabilitation regime (he dislocated a shoulder in huge surf recently), is currently too deliriously happy about QPR's magnificent back-to-back victories to remember that we ever had this idea.

Surfing: It's Just Not Golf

For all that it is a highly individualistic pursuit, surfing can be an enjoyably sociable activity. This morning, at a certain break which was working very nicely, if a little on the small side, everyone seemed to know each other and everyone seemed to be in a good mood. There was a really nice vibe in the water, no doubt helped by the glorious sunshine. Such was the banter that for a moment I wondered if this sort of thing is one of the reasons people play golf. I.e., they go for a stroll around a golf course, hit a few balls and talk to their mates.

Then, though, I remembered that I'm a believer in World No Golf Day. I don't like golf. Some people do, and good on 'em, but it's not the game for me. One thing I dislike about it is the decimation of the environment to create golf courses, another is that golf clubs are always so exclusive.

In contrast, surfing doesn't wreck the enviroment (OK, I know, board manufacture has its issues), and it's also intrinsically democratic. Despite the localism school of thought, no one owns the sea. You can paddle out and enjoy yourself without having to join a club or wear a silly pair of trousers. You do have to pay your dues in a much more physical sense than handing over a year's subscription to the golf club treasurer, and you do have to be respectful and try not to drop in on people (unless it's your 13-year-old son, in which case it's merely revenge for all the times he did the same thing last year), but these are good things.

I hope I haven't offended the vast swathes of surfer-golfers out there, so to distract all attention from my antipathy to golf, here, with thanks to my friend and resolute non-golfer Jules, is Frank Zappa:

Interviewer (straight-laced TV person): So because you have long hair, does that mean you're a woman?

Zappa: Because you have a wooden leg, does that mean you're a table?

Image courtesy of catmother on Flickr.

Of artists, easterlies and the equinox

Just one week to go and I'll be in Costa Rica. Can't wait. Not that there's anything wrong with the surf round here, but every now and then it is nice to surf in boardshorts. And with Harry lately having emerged from his two months of retirement we have but one plan: to surf our brains out.

Meanwhile, a couple of points of local interest. First, surfer and artist Ben Cook has a show of new work opening at Cornwall Contemporary in Penzance tonight. Ben hangs his wetsuit out down Praa Sands way and is also often in the water at Godrevy. He's an interesting and talented artist, and his work is always well worth checking out. I'm looking forward to seeing the show and possibly having a quiet ale or two afterwards.

Secondly, I appear to have made a mistake. It might even be a cautionary tale for the new media age. But I can't talk about it just yet. Maybe I'll write about it from the safety of Costa Rica. After all, if it's good enough for Allan Weisbecker, it's got to be OK for me.

And last, but by no means least, it's the vernal equinox today and an easterly is a-blowin'. A good summer is on its way. Apparently.

Image courtesy of mrcthepc on Flickr.

Relax - a good summer is coming

It's going to be a good summer. We will have oodles of sunshine and it'll be warm. People will sunbathe as never before and emergency vats of ice cream will be ordered. There might not be so much swell as last summer's wave-fest, but you can forget the Med - the south west is where it'll be at.

How do I know this? Because Nick, who lives up the road and knows about these things, told Karen of an old fisherman's saying in these parts: "If the easterly holds for the Equinox, a good summer is on its way."

The charts all say that on Friday, the day of the vernal equinox, there'll be an easterly blowing. Mind you, it looks like it might have a bit of south in it. What does this mean?

Talking of wind, there was a lot of it today but there were still waves to be had at Spot G. Or, in my case, one wave to be had. It was a nice, peeling left-hander but at the end of the ride my quad tear, which I'd aggravated as usual last night while playing footy (having rested it for two weeks and convinced myself it was better), told me in no uncertain terms that unless I went in and took it easy, I might not be doing all that much surfing during the Wade clan's forthcoming trip to Costa Rica. I reckon a night's sleep and it'll be fine for a surf tomorrow. A one wave surf, that is.

Image courtesy of tinbac.

A Welcome Sight

It was nice to get home from an idyllic, if surf-free, long weekend on Tresco and Bryher and find this over at Sennen.