September swells are the best.

Fantastic run of swell this month - just as well as we are beginning to loose the light in the evenings. Great!! Still just enough time to organise a quick dash home from work and in for a couple of hours before the murky grey lines that just make the distinction between sea, swell, horizon and sky blurs into one and catching a wave becomes one last minute, frantic dash - great for 180' board spin practise though.


Notable sessions -



Getting Rob on my Jimmy Lewis earlier this month was a treat - seems like ages ago that we were falling off the things in flatwater but seeing Rob progress in the course of a couple of hours or so from knee paddling, standing, turning and then catching his first wave brings it all back. Less than 12 months ago we were in (or on) the same boat. Hope he sticks with it - not least because I hope he buys the Jimmy so I can free up some cash for the Naish 9'6".


This last week has been outstanding

- Friday night small, clean and fun

- Saturday the same albeit building

- Sunday held off in the morning with the swell building all day into an insane crescendo of 7-8' at 13 secands, this coinciding with the high evening tide saw us out at Gwithian for 3 hours - Probably only caught half a dozen waves but they were worth it! I managed to pick up a heavy smack in the face on my paddle out as the board (C4) rose up to give me a kiss across the bridge of my nose and forehead - still hurts. Teach me not to knee paddle (ponce)!

Gavin gave his nice new Naish 10'6 a good seeing to - from the safety of 'way out back' I still have visions of his board squirreling skywards at a rate of knots only to be pulled back to earth by his leash other wise I'm sure that it would still be going 'Hope that he's not under that' I thought.

The semi step deck Naish has a nice, loose, performancey longboard feel - holds tight on the wave face as well - classy board.

As the sets passed through my biggest issue was paddling in - the wave-accelerated light offshore wind blowing up the face seemed like it was multiplied tenfold and felt like running into a brick wall - which made me try to go a bit later - this coupled with the closeout swell dredging sand as you looked over the lip made for an interesting 'stop or go' decision process. Most of the 'go's ended in a cheap little 'catch and kick off bottle-out as the waves turned themselves inside out - One notable journey down the face saw the wind get in under the board nose resulting in a total back flip. Full on aero lift of the board - just like Bluebird!!! Not my best surf - but an adventure all the same and not to be missed - ended up with a nice, long, set dodging, butt clenching ride to the inside - result.

Monday evening the swell had died a bit and with the later tide I had a fantastic session halfway down the beach - did myself proud I thought, the waves were perfect and held up nicely - so well in fact that I pulled off two of the longest backhand (left for me) nose rides almost getting the tail to slide and skid - magic. (My definition of nose rides involves me shuffling to within two feet of the nose).

Tuesday was much smaller but with no-one bar me in it was a relief to be able to moooch about and pick some mellow little waves after the previous few days.

The C4 seems to be getting a bit easier for me - still falling off - still only happy in glass but beginning to spin it about a bit faster now it is simply an amazing surfboard - highly tuned and not at all forgiving - but it inspires me to do stuff that I can't contemplate on my other boards.

Just ordered a board bag for it from the guys at Drift Board Bags I'll let you know how it goes.

So that's it for the moment - off to France next month - come on!!! Which will bring to an end my first year of SUP'dom - should round the blog off nicely - although with Costa Rica in January that might bring it all full circle - who knows?