"Stiff upper lip old chap"

"Keep calm and carry on"
Somebody's selling an awful lot of tea towels and tin mugs with this war time slogan on it, going for the quintissentially British "stiff upper lip" angle on retro design. It got me thinking though about what a good piece of advice it is. Take a deep breath, count to ten and make a new plan.
Missed a connection? Didn't get the job or contract your plans were pivoting on? Luggage lost in transit? There's a million different ways that it can hit the fan at home, work or on the road, but very few of these things are insumountable. So just keep calm, and carry on.
This is an image of my old friend and neighbour Jim, looking quinissentially British, taking a slurp out of said tin mug after harvest.

Lightning Bolt

"No two surfboards of that period looked alike. This was a function of unique design theories but also of the fact that during the transition from longboards to short, no one knew what surfboards were supposed to look like or what worked best. Everything was in a state of transition, and there was no established norm...

...I suppose in a generous mood one could call the colour coral, but one might also have described it as baby-shit brown. Back then I never gave much thought to a surfboard's lifespan, especially at the Pipeline. I figured if I dodn't grow to like this colour, the board probably wouldn't last long anyway...

...I got orders for the same shape as the Coral Cruiser, some of them from very good surfers whom I admired, and I gained quite a bit of confidence in my surfboard shaping. The following summer Jack Shipley, the head salesperson at Surf Line Hawai'i, and I joined together to open a shop of our own just down the street. We called the new shop Lightning Bolt Surf Company. The brand and insignia would go on to become recognized by surfers everywhere. Eventually it would grow into an internaltional licensing company, the first of its kind in the surf world.

The Coral Cruiser would stay intact and at one point, I painted a small blue lightning bolt on her deck. Eventually, she would become relegated to the back of the pile, replaced by shiny new bright coloured Lightning Bolt boards. She sadly sank into obscurity, left under a house somewhere and forgotten. When I did think of her and all she had done for me, it was too late. She was gone. But I'll never forget the magic, the excitement and the many glorious moments when she was the best that ever was."

Gerry Lopez, one of the surf worlds most iconic figures, paraphrased from his short story "The Coral Cruiser" found in his incredible biography "Surf Is Where You Find It".

Known as Mr Pipeline, Lopez was the undisputed King of the worlds most famous wave throughout the late 60's and early 70's, founder of one of the most famous surfboard brands ever, Indonesian pioneer, big wave surfer, elder statesman for the sport and he now resides in Oregon where he spends his days snowboarding and shaping surfboards still. He's got a lot of stories to tell, which he does with massive understatement and humility.

Text copyright Gerry Lopez and Patagonia Books.

Top image by myself, a Lightning Bolt that I was shown as part of a wide and amazing collection of vintage surfboards in California.

Bottom image of Gerry doing what he became famous for at Pipeline I think by Steve Wilkins, circa 1970.

Boring? Not at all.

How many surf spots are there where you can catch the same wave three times or more, and rack up minutes of ride time?

The tidal bore wave that periodically rolls up the River Severn, through the countryside on the English and Welsh border, definitely provides one of the more charming facets on the periphery of the surfing world. Often garnering more attention from the mainstream media than the surf media, the Severn bore is also at the centre of continual conflicting environmental arguments regarding the decades old proposal to build a £20bn barrage across the estuary to provide a renewable source of energy. With legal requirements for 15% of the UK’s electricity needs to be met by renewable sources by 2020, a barrage would account for a healthy 15% of this.
But this is counterbalanced by the resultant flooding of protected wetlands and bird habitats, the enormous time scale required to neutralise the projects carbon footprint (some eighty years), issues concerning salmon spawning on the river, the silting up of the river and the cost of sediment wear on the turbines.

The movement of the tide and its bore wave up and down the estuary and river has been described as “Gloucestershire breathing in and out”. A barrage would draw an end to this.
A friend once described his bore surfing experience to me as “a small chubby wave, sheep poo and real ale”…I was intrigued so decided to go see for myself, driving three hours inland against all my natural instincts - to go surfing.

Roughly once a month, for a few days at a time either side of the spring high tides, cars stop on bridges and spectators line the river banks to watch a motley crew of surfers and the odd kayaker slide down the muddy, slimy river bank into the water to await the surge of the tide. One wave every twelve hours, or near enough – sometimes there are two or three waves making up the head of the tide, but whichever way you look at it, if you miss it you’ve got to wait a long time for the next chance. Probably one of the rare occasions that you’ll get apprehensive as a waist high line of whitewater approaches. The wave itself exhibits different characteristics on different stretches of the river, sometimes just a rolling whitewater wave and sometimes throwing up shoulders and sections to turn off where it hits shallow stone ledges or sand banks, much as waves do in the ocean.

In fact, the novelty value is probably part of the appeal. Length of ride can be several miles, the record being eleven miles on a single wave - ridden by Steve King, the local bore maestro who’s missed only a handful of tides in the past thirty-odd years. It’s no high performance wave, granted, but it’s a charming and mildly eccentric weekend of surfing a long way removed from the regular scene back on the beaches. Everybody’s friendly and pleased to see each other, keen to share stories, a pint and a wave. When there’s only one every twelve hours, party waves become de-rigour and it’s all about distance covered and the width of smiles shared.

The next tides of sufficient height to produce a bore wave are next weekend, with a 9.8m high tide on the morning of Friday October 8th and a 9.9m high tide on the morning of Saturday the 9th. Why not get yourself to Gloucestershire and go surf something a bit different?

http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/

http://www.thelongwave.com/buzz/boreriderscom.html

Images from the top down are:

Mick Jardine and Matt Boon waiting for the bore to arrive in knee deep water at Newnham.

Mick on wave number one of the day, warming up ready to give it a go on a shortboard further upstream.

Silty, slimey feet from river bank scrambles.

Getting there...

Trying to find the river down country lanes and farmers fields.

The one that got away...Matt has a head cam on here and the plan was for both of us to capture a shot of Mick blasting his fins through the roof at this secret stone ledge. The longboarder enjoying the empty shoulder here jostled him out of position though which is pretty crucial on a tiny 6'1" in a freshwater river. Oh well, maybe next month hey.

Blues Gone Green

A couple of music based pieces in fairly quick succession with the addition of this piece, but it's not without good reason I assure you...
Last Sunday afternoon I rolled down the hill to The Eden Project to catch an interesting show: Blues and Roots maestro Martin Harley was playing the final show of his "Blues Gone Green" tour in the inspirational environs of the Mediterranean Biome, the culmination of a bike powered, completely emission free UK tour.
Between August 20th and September 19th Martin pedalled 1,200 miles and played 27 live shows, averaging around 50 miles per day on a "Big Dummy" cargo bike fitted with racks to carry his guitars. My friends at Finisterre kitted him up with a load of technical clothing to equip him for all of the vagaries of the British summer weather, and he arrived last Sunday from Plymouth to play his final show in fine form. Martin was playing solo shows (as opposed to fronting his three-piece band the Martin Harley Trio) with all of the power for the PA system provided by a special "solar" truck covered in photovoltaic cells, introducing some songs from the new album and mixing up beautiful acoustic folk ballads and blistering slide blues stompers.
A ripping show after a month pedalling a massive bike up and down hills - big props to him for showing that you don't necessarily need a massive hermetically sealed all mod-cons tour bus, or even a comfortable saddle, to transport you between gigs in order to arrive refreshed.
You can just go slow, inhale some fresh air and enjoy the view en-route.

Read his own account of the tour on his "blues gone green" blog here.

Photo above by Angus Cowan, photos below snapped by Martin.

Run in, walk out

Thankfully, in percentage terms, not a great deal of the worlds coastlines are developed and paved over, or have beach access blocked by big private houses. The majority of coastlines are as nature intended, a narrow belt where the land meets the sea taking the form of cliffs or beaches, mangroves, marshes or dunes.
This is what makes our experiences of the coast so special.
Where I live in Cornwall there is a coastal footpath that runs around the entire coast, all 258 miles of it. Most of the main beaches have car parking available so you can just drive there, pay your meter money, get changed on the concrete so that you don't get sand in your wetsuit, surf, and drive home again. But there's a lot more beaches than just those that you can drive too, and most of the time they're the better surf spots - not least because there's no crowds.
Perhaps a longer drive, the last bit down a farm track with grass growing down the middle. A few styles and gates, slipping in cow poo as you run down the path, getting scratched by the brambles, nodding a hello to the occasional passing dog walker. A quick surf check from the top of the cliff then keep sliding down, and the last bit scrambling down the rocks onto the sand. You always run even though you know you'll be out of breath when you get there, because you're always too excited to see what the waves are like.
Surf for a few hours, then put your wet wetsuit and towel, all waterlogged and heavy, back into your bag, pick your board up under a paddle weary arm, and start the long, slow trudge uphill back to the car.
Walk in, run out.
You'll feel better for the effort, and you saved a few coins on car parking.

"So which one is Mumford, and are they really all his sons?"

Back in early July the Crown Princes of the British folk/rock scene revival, Mumford & Sons, played a gig at the Eden Sessions supporting Doves. I'd been looking forward to this gig for ages, mainly because it's not all that often that bands make it past the end of the M5 to this corner of the country, and also because it was technically speaking my last day of "proper" work for the next couple of months.

So having written it in big red letters on my calendar, circled it loads, and bullied a load of friends into getting tickets too, I was late and missed half of their pretty short set. I have a very valid excuse, mind; a rare and incredibly good left hand point-break just up the coast from me had been woken up by a long-range ground swell (even rarer outside of winter) and was firing for the afternoon on the pushing tide, so I went surfing with a friend. We kept checking our watches and working out how long it'd take us to race down to the Eden Project after "one more wave", but they were the sort of waves that you can't drive away from.

We did make it there in time to catch the last 5 songs of their short support slot, and they were on fine form. Here's a shot from in the thick of the crowd as they fully got their stomp on, and one from up above looking down.

Probably one of the last times that these guys will be opening for another band rather than headlining I'd guess.

A few weeks ago my best mates girl Nicolle e-mailed me a link to this video - she's a massive music head and fully has her finger on the pulse (and runs a rad music blog) - it's of Mumford & Sons jamming on the streets of Paris (and singing in French no less) playing 'The Banjolin Song' and 'Awake My Soul', it's 9 minutes and 48 seconds of great music that is well worth checking out. It's on vimeo and isn't downloadable hence I can't throw it up directly on here, so apologies, but a move of the mouse and a left click is all it'll take:

http://vimeo.com/12718108

Al-Jazira Al-Arabiya

A few weeks back I fulfilled an ambition that's been eating away at me for the past four years or so: Go on a surf trip down the Arabian Peninsula, look for waves where people don't usually look for waves and have a bit of an adventure. Naturally I also took my camera.

Drift online surf magazine have been good enough to run the article that I produced as a result, so rather than me posting a ton of photos here, you can hit the jump and check it all out via them; words, images, the whole shebang...

Al-Jazeera Al-Arabiya

Big thanks to my friends Scott and Dan at Surfing Dubai, to Kim for relentlessly bombarding my inbox with photos of his own trips to the area and swell charts until I could bear it no longer, to Drift for once again deeming my output worthy of spreading and to you for taking the time to be interested. Cheers, I'm made up.